


The Weight of Lies

by rahleeyah



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:09:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6296503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahleeyah/pseuds/rahleeyah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after Cotterdam Ruth Evershed turns up at Thames House, desperate for help. Can the team find her missing child in time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Spooks fic! Since I'm notorious for not finishing the things I start, I have waited to post until the story is complete. All chapters up now.
> 
> The weight of lies will bring you down  
> And follow you to every town 'cause nothing happens here that doesn't happen there  
> So when you run make sure you run to something and not away from  
> Cause lies don't need an airplane to chase you down.  
> -"The Weight of Lies"//The Avett Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut ahead folks! If that's not your thing, feel free to skip to the next chapter, the story will still make sense.

They sat for a time in a despairing silence, the chill fog and the lonely wash of the river against the shore their only companions. Though it was full dark the night was young, interminable hours stretching before them, waiting for the boat to come, to carry her out to sea, never to be seen or heard from again.

“Thank you, Zaf,” she said quietly, her words barely penetrating the fog that lay thick on the stones between them.

He shrugged, the wall cold where he sat propped against it.

“I wasn’t about to leave you here alone, Ruth,” he told her. There were other things he wanted to say, about how proud he was to have known her, how he wished he had a tenth of her courage. How he knew exactly who was behind the wheel of the dark Lexus rolling slowly towards them down the quay.

“Shit,” she swore, drawing her legs beneath her, ready to spring up and run. “Do you think they saw us?”

Zaf couldn’t help the mischievous little smile that sprang to his face. “Oh, I hope so,” he said.

She stared at him, terror in her eyes for just a moment before she registered his grin. That hurt him, that instant when she thought he’d betrayed her. She had guessed the truth now, though, as terror gave way to a sorrow so profound that Zaf found he could not hold her gaze.

As the car door slammed and the driver approached them, Zaf rose to his feet and held his hand out to the woman who sat frozen on the stones below.

“Come on, Ruth,” he said.

She nodded, mute, stumbling to her feet like a drunk. Her heart was in her eyes, as ever, and he resolutely looked away, afraid that if she caught him with her stare he, too, would begin to weep.

The driver had reached them, emerging through the swirling fog like a wraith on silent feet. He was a stocky man, somewhat past what one might call middle age, stubbornly clinging to what little straw-colored hair remained to him. He wore the same dark trousers as before, his starched white shirt tucked in smartly, but he had lost his tie and jacket. He walked like a man approaching the gallows, a haunted look in his small, dark eyes.

“Zaf,” Harry said, holding out his hand. Zaf took it, and they shook briefly. “You’ve done me a great service.”

“Harry,” Zaf said with a little nod. He turned to Ruth, kissed her cold cheek, and meandered away, hands tucked in his pockets.

Ruth fidgeted, smoothing her hands down the front of her long, heavy coat. Harry watched her silently, drinking in the sight of her; her dark hair curled softly around her face, her grey eyes focused with laser-like intensity on the ground beneath her feet. She was slight, pushing forty, a head shorter than Harry, who was himself not a tall man. There was not a thought she had that did not register on her face, in the heavy lines that laughter and, more recently, worry had left there. Harry thought she was quite the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he stood for a moment entranced by her, a thousand “what ifs” running through his mind.

“Harry,” she said finally, shifting her weight back, away from him, turning her luminous face to gaze at him, tears in her eyes and his name on her lips.

“Harry,” she said again, her voice a broken whisper, “You shouldn’t have come.”

Harry crossed the space between them, caught both of her hands in his own.

“God himself and all his angels couldn’t have kept me away,” he said, his voice sandpaper-rough.

“You can’t stay out here in the cold with me all night,” she protested. Zaf was still close by; Harry realized that Ruth thought he had only come to say good-bye.

“I don’t intend to,” he told her.

She looked up sharply, trying to read his face.

“I’ve taken the liberty of- of booking a room, for the evening,” he said in a rush, feeling suddenly for all his care-worn years as though he were a teenager again, fumbling in the back seat of his father’s car. _She deserves better_ , he thought, but it was out there now. No taking it back.

She couldn’t have looked more stunned if he’d struck her. “That was… presumptuous,” she said at last, and he couldn’t help but mirror the knowing little smile she gave him. _I might have said no…_

Still holding her hands in his, he drew her closer to him.

“We only have tonight,” he whispered, leaning slightly so that his forehead touched hers gently. He felt her trembling, though whether from the cold or some other, deeper feeling he couldn’t be sure. “You deserve a thousand nights, Ruth, but I can only give you one. Will you take it?”

She gazed up at him, her eyes two shining stars in the blackest night of his life.

“Yes,” she said, so softly he almost wasn’t sure she’d said anything at all.

He kissed her then, a small, shy kiss that she returned with all the softness and grace he’d always expected from her. He savored the moment, the brush of her lips against his, the smell of her hair and the sound of the river, the warmth of her as she nestled closer to him. How many times had he wanted to do just this, to lose himself in her, to finally tell her, show her, how much she meant to him? She smiled against his lips, and he knew they had to go, now, before the moment was lost forever.

Harry wrapped an arm protectively around her waist and led her back to the car.

From the shadows down the quay Zaf watched their figures disappear into the fog, and he smiled. “Good-bye, Ruth,” he said, before he set off into the night to find a bed of his own.

***

If Ruth had any reservations, she gave no sign of it in the car. They sat in silence, unspeaking, no radio playing, just the roar of the engine and the wash of the street lights on their faces as they rumbled past buildings full of people who had no idea how momentous this night was to be for a pair of star-crossed almost-lovers in a Lexus speeding past on the street far below. They were two shadows in a dark car, two fading echoes passing through the land of the living, together for the last time. Ruth sat with her hands on her knees, stealing glances at Harry when she thought he wasn’t watching, unaware that he was doing the same.

With each passing moment the air between them grew thicker, heated with expectations and hopes and longings too long buried beneath a thin veneer of professional distance. They were rushing toward the very precipice, and with every passing mile they drew closer to the edge.

Finally they arrived at the hotel, and as Harry parked the car and killed the ignition, Ruth reached out to stop him with a hand on his arm. The warmth of her touch went through him like an electric shock, and his heart sank in his chest.

“Wait, Harry,” she began, and he steeled himself for the rejection he was sure would follow. She was so _good_ , so much better than he could ever hope to be, and perhaps she had realized that a one-night tryst in a hotel was too tawdry to even be considered.

“The CCTV,” she continued, pointing to a half-hidden camera high up on the exterior of the building. “They’re looking for me.”

Harry’s heart rocketed back up into his throat. She wasn’t turning him down, after all.

He gave her what he hoped was a charming and mysterious smile.

“They won’t find you here,” he assured her. “We own those cameras, at least for the next few hours. And I think you’ll find the night clerk most accommodating.”

She gave a small sigh of relief, visibly releasing the tension she’d been holding in her shoulders, and he smiled in earnest to see it.

“Shall we?” he asked with a confidence he did not feel, and she gave him a nervous little nod.

Harry exited the vehicle, fully intent upon opening her door like a gentleman, but she beat him to it. He drew her close again as they walked towards the hotel, marveling at the way she fit beneath his arm as though she were always meant to be there. No one looked at them twice; he supposed that to the outside world they seemed to be two regular people, an ordinary couple, on holiday perhaps. Maybe if their luck had held, they could have been.

Adam was waiting for them at the desk. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” he said with a sad little smile, reaching behind the counter to produce their key-card. “Room 308. Enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you,” Harry told him earnestly. Ruth blushed under Adam’s frank stare, but there were a few other guests milling about the lobby and she didn’t dare say anything else.

They reached the bank of lifts and stepped inside the first available car. As the door closed she sagged against him, burying her face in his shoulder. “God, does everybody know?” she groaned, mortified.

He kissed the top of her head, too enamored with her closeness to even attempt to deny it.

“They wanted to help,” he explained, and she lifted her face to look at him, cheeks still rosy, eyes incandescent and faintly accusing.

“It’s no secret, Miss Evershed,” he whispered as they stepped out of the lift and made their way down the hall, “that I am now, as I have been for quite some time, very much in love with you.”

They reached the door as he spoke those words, and she turned in his arms, looking up at him with hooded eyes and lips just begging to be kissed.

“Please don’t say that, Harry,” she said. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

He didn’t trust himself to answer, and instead fumbled with the key card. The lock gave a faint click and he pushed the door open, following her inside.

As Harry busied himself with locking the door, Ruth shed her coat and found her way to the window. The shades were drawn back, and she found she could not take her gaze from the lights of London stretching out before her. For a moment she was overcome with memories of long days spent winding her way through museums and walking by the river; of tense, desperate nights when the fate of this city, maybe the whole country, rested on her shoulders. One more night, and then she would leave, never to see London again. Never to see Harry again.

“Harry,” she breathed, not realizing she’d spoken his name aloud until he came to stand behind her. He didn’t touch her, didn’t make a sound, but he didn’t need to. She always knew when he was close by, could always feel him without touch, see him without sight. She leaned back, just a little, at the same time he took a step toward her. She felt the warm solid weight of him behind her, the steady rise and fall of his chest, watched their shadows dancing on the wall. _We only have tonight…_

Neither of them were certain how long they stood like that, staring out at the city, allowing themselves only the slightest of touches, before Harry’s baser instincts took over. He raised his hands to her hips, splayed his fingers across her body, holding her tightly. He lowered his head, peppered kisses along the side of her neck. Ruth sighed, tilted her head to allow him more access, and covered his hands with her own.

Under any other circumstances, they might have talked about this first. Might have had another dinner, a few glasses of wine. Might have seriously considered the consequences, might have come up with a plan. Might have spoken more. Now, though, there was no time left for questions and answers, no time left for gentle flirtations and quiet park-bench chats. Harry used the hands still locked about her waist to turn her in his arms, drawing her closer against him. There was no hesitation, no “are you sure?” She rose up on her tiptoes to meet him, tangling her arms around his neck, her fingers toying with the short hairs at the nape of his neck as his mouth found hers once more.

The kiss started slow, a gentle brushing of lips and no more, but then Harry slid his hand under the hem of Ruth’s shirt, resting it lightly on the bare skin at the small of her back. Reflexively she pressed herself against him, gave a little gasp against his lips, and in the instant her mouth opened he pursued her with his tongue. She made a sound that was almost a whimper, locked her arms that much tighter around his neck, pushed her hips that much harder against him, and he lost all sense of himself.

He kissed like he was drowning, like he was starving, like he was burning to death inside his own skin, and she was his only chance of survival. She met like with like, sucking his bottom lip between her teeth and nipping, perhaps a bit harder than he ordinarily would have liked, running her tongue along the length of his own. She ran her hands down his back, as far as she could reach, and back up across his shoulders, learning the shape of him.

With a super-human effort, Harry carefully disentangled himself from her, pushing her back just far enough to get a look at her in the soft glow of the London night streaming in through the window behind her. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen and parted slightly, her breathing ragged. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, how utterly she owned him, but the words wouldn’t come. There was a question in her eyes, a momentary flutter of fear, and he wondered if he hadn’t better say something, after all.

“I wanted to see you,” he said, and he gave a small smile when he saw her cheeks redden even more. He reached out and gently took hold of the hem of her shirt, hoping she could see the question in his eyes, hoping the look she returned him was the answer he wanted.

Carefully he eased her shirt up and over her head, fighting the urge to tell her again _I love you_. Her tousled hair framed her face, that face he loved so dearly, and Harry tried to capture the image of her in his mind forever. He pulled her to him again, caught her mouth with his own, and once again they were off and running.

She snaked her hands between them, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt as he found the zipper of her skirt, carefully sliding it open and letting the fabric slide down the length of her bare legs to the floor. Trust Ruth, he thought, to wear a skirt when she was planning to spend the entire night out of doors and on the run. She’d managed to unbutton his shirt, but it occurred to him that she was very nearly naked, and there was still so very much for him to learn about her.

Tripping and muttering they made their way from the window to the end of the bed, neither willing to release the other with lips or hands, exploring each new piece of warm skin with a reverent sort of delight. When the back of his knees hit the edge of the bed Harry eased himself into a sitting position, pulling Ruth down with him so that she straddled his lap, her knees planted on either side of his hips. He ran his mouth down the column of her throat, alternately kissing and tasting and biting each new piece of her as it was revealed to him. She whimpered her approval, giving the occasional involuntary little thrust of her hips each time he hit a particularly sensitive spot. Every time she pressed down against his lap he felt himself growing harder, felt his heart race faster. Wandering hands found their way to the clasp of her bra, flicking it neatly open. She laughed, a shocked, surprised little sound that made him smile against her skin, but then she’d thrown the brief garment away and he was lost in her again.

Harry dragged his hands down her bare back to cup her ass, squeezing slightly, exulting when he was rewarded with another thrust of her hips. He traced the curve of her breast with the tip of his tongue, drawing ever nearer to his target, reveling in the way her breath came faster and faster, her pants a music all their own. He closed his mouth over one tight nipple, licked and sucked until she was whimpering again, and then quite deliberately closed his teeth around it, just enough to make her moan.

He looked up at her, naked on his lap, her head thrown back and her nails digging into his scalp, and prayed that this night would never end.

“ _Jesus_ , Harry,” she whined, and he laughed, giving her another little nibble before kissing his way across to the other breast. He was seized with a sudden slightly irrational, decidedly impolite, almost certainly immature desire to leave his mark on her skin, and he set about it, sucking the soft flesh of the inside of her breast between his teeth and refusing to let go. The longer he held on the more she whimpered, her hands coming up to nestle once more in his hair, holding him closer to her, the rolling of her hips almost continual now as she sought some sort of release from the onslaught. He refused to stop until he was certain he had achieved his goal, releasing her with a distinct sense of regret, until he saw the dark bruise forming against her pale skin, saw the heat in her eyes.

If they had more time, she might have said something about it. Might have chided him for the ridiculousness of it. Might have asked where the impulse came from. Instead she used the hands still cradling his head to tilt his face toward her own, claiming his mouth once more in a searing kiss. She took charge this time, running her hands along his chest under his shirt, pushing it back until he was forced to release her just long enough to wiggle from it. Now it was her turn to lean back, to get a good look at him.

“Oh, Harry,” she sighed, the fingers of her right hand coming to rest over the scar from the bullet that had pierced his shoulder. Tom’s bullet.

Their breathing slowed together as her fingertips gently traced the outline of his scar. Her eyes were far away, unseeing, but Harry knew where she had gone. There was too much loss in their lives, too much pain, too little love. He caught her hand in his own, pulled it away from his skin, pressed a kiss against her palm.

“Not tonight, love,” he said softly. There was a momentary flash of something that looked too much like sorrow in her soft gray eyes, and Harry realized he’d said it again. _Love_.

He kissed her to make it stop, biting her lip, squeezing her breast, her ass, whatever it took to bring her back into this moment with him. Perhaps it was the combination of the three, but she was making those soft little noises again, and that was just fine with Harry. Carefully, not wanting to push her too hard, he eased a hand down between them, gently running the tips of his fingers over the smooth silk that was the last barrier between him and a completely naked Ruth. Her whole body shuddered, even at that light contact, and Harry couldn’t help the surge of pride that filled him when he realized how wet she was already.

Slowly, tentative lest he push her too hard too quickly, he eased his hand under the elastic, dragged the tips of his fingers along the length of her wet heat, and was rewarded with his name falling once more from her lips, her voice a ragged, needy sigh. That was all the incentive he needed.

He plunged two thick fingers inside her, searching for her clit with his thumb as he set a hard, heavy pace. Ruth thrust her hips down against his hand, held his face against her breast and nearly wept with want as his mouth closed once more over a tight, over-sensitive nipple. He curled his fingers inside her, searching for that spot that would send her reeling, a low, steady moan reassuring him once he found it. He kept going, thrusting and curling his fingers, rubbing circles around the little nub at her center with his thumb, laving her nipple with his tongue until she clenched tight around him, her teeth sinking into his shoulder to stifle what he was certain would have been a scream as she came with his fingers buried to the knuckle inside her.

Her inner walls clamped down hard on his hand, her whole body shuddering, and he leaned back just far enough to catch a glimpse of her face, her eyes closed and her bottom lip clenched between her teeth. God, but she was perfect. Harry realized he was still clutching her ass with his free hand, and gave it a little squeeze. The result was immediate; her eyes flew open, dark and heavy with want, and she lifted his face to hers, giving the fingers still trapped inside her another little squeeze as her tongue slipped between his lips.

They kissed lazily for a time, one of his hands still sandwiched between her hips and his own now painfully hard cock, the other still digging into soft the flesh of her bottom, unwilling to release her even for a moment. She was exquisite, she was extraordinary, and she was his.

For tonight, at least.

Finally the need to breathe overcame their need to devour each other, and they eased apart. Ruth leaned back against his knees, running her fingers through her hair with another little shiver of pleasure that sent a shock of fire up his spine. He slid his hand out from between them, bereft at the loss of her heat.

“Do you have any idea,” he asked her, his voice a rumbling growl, his hands clutching the bare flesh of her hips, fingers leaving wet trails on her over-heated skin, “just how beautiful you are?”

She smiled down at him sadly, his dear sweet Ruth, his conscience, his soul, his very heart.

“I could ask the same of you,” she answered.

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “Come on,” he said and awkwardly they shuffled further back onto the bed, until he was laying with his head on the pillows, her body enfolded in the protective circle of his arms, her hair fanned out across his chest where she lay listening to the steady thrum of his heart. Harry dropped gentle kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her hair, her ear, any part of her he could reach while she dragged her fingers up and down his spine. _Don’t leave me_ , he thought. _Please don’t go._

“I think I’m a trifle over dressed,” he said instead. She grinned up at him mischievously, hands going immediately to the waistband of his trousers. Together they divested each other of the last of their clothes until they lay, smiling and gasping slightly, completely naked. He captured her lips again, kissing her, tasting her, trying not too think too hard about the warm hands running over his hips, his stomach, drawing ever closer to where the hard length of him pressed against the mattress.

“Roll over,” she murmured against his lips, and how could he refuse her? Harry did as he was bid, rolling onto his back, and she moved with him, kneeling between his legs, one warm hand wrapping around the thickness of his shaft. He groaned, trying not to close his eyes, not wanting to miss a moment of this. She pumped him slowly with one hand, the other resting warm and soft against his thigh, never taking her eyes from his face. He couldn’t fathom the expression reflected in those sparkling grey eyes, and the heat of her touch made thought all but impossible. He bucked up against her involuntarily, trying to will himself to hold back, not to lose his control too soon. He wasn’t finished with her yet.

And then she did the most unexpected thing. His Ruth, his shy, bonkers, brilliant Ruth, bent her head over his cock and took the tip of it into her mouth.

“Christ,” he swore, reaching out to brush her hair back from her face so he could watch as she eased her mouth down around him, the heat of her almost more than he could bear. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to thrust up against her, not to come right then. Her eyes never once left his face.

She took her time with him, her movements tortuously slow as she took the length of him in her mouth, in and out, tongue brushing against him until he could take no more. Harry gently raised her face in his hands, and she slid up to meet him, kissed him again with more passion that he’d thought possible. He flipped them easily, running his hands along the smooth skin of her thighs while his tongue explored her mouth and she raked her nails down the broad expanse of his back.

It was then that Harry had decided enough was enough, and his need to be inside her overcame all other thoughts.

He reached behind and caught her hands with his own, bringing them up to rest above her head. He pinned her wrists together with one hand, and with the other he eased her legs apart, encouraging her to bend one leg and open herself that much wider to him. The thatch of dark curls there between her legs was calling his name, but though he longed to bury his face in her heat and make her scream again he simply couldn’t wait any longer. _Later_ , he told himself, trying to ignore the nagging voice reminding him that there very likely wouldn’t be a later. Instead he leaned forward, kissing her once as the tip of his cock brushed against her. He liked her like this, her body strung taught as a bow beneath him, hips rolling as she searched for him, desperate for some contact. Harry was more than happy to oblige.

Still holding her hands above her head, he grasped himself with his free hand, and eased inside her just a bit, just enough to make her hiss and thrust her hips up to meet him. Gave another short, shallow stroke, just barely pushing inside her before he was gone again. He watched her, eyes screwed up tight, her back arched to meet him, her mouth open beneath his. Every part of this moment etched in his mind, a memory to be treasured for the rest of his life.

“Please,” she whispered into his mouth, and with her encouragement he slid all the way home, sheathing himself completely inside her. They took a moment to adjust, panting against each other’s lips, and Harry let his eyes rake over her, her hands, so small against his own, her breasts, pushed together by this position, dusky nipples hard where they brushed against the coarse hair of his chest, sweat glistening like winter’s first frost on the pale skin just below her neck. He ran his tongue along her collarbone, savoring the salty sweetness of her, before giving a gentle, experimental thrust of his hips.

She moaned, and he was lost.

He dug the fingers of his free hand hard into her hip, and set a relentless pace. She arched up to meet him, hands still caught above her head, unable to do more than meet him thrust for thrust, to feel the length of him inside her, the delicious ache building, roaring ever closer to another climax.

“Now, Ruth,” he growled against her neck, and she did as ordered, another desperate little whimper escaping her lips as the movement of her hips stuttered against him, as her walls clamped down on him, squeezing him tighter and tighter until with a strangled groan he followed her over the edge, spilling hot and heavy inside her.

Harry wasn’t aware of actually releasing her hands, but when he came back to himself he found he was lying along her side, half covering her, his face buried in her hair, his wet, slowly softening cock nestled against her thigh. _I love you,_ he thought, wishing he could say the words, knowing nothing would spoil the sweetness of this moment more. His felt as if his bones had been replaced with butter, and much as he longed to raise himself up and kiss her again, he found he could not move an inch.

Ruth was silent beneath him, her face hidden from his sight, her small, warm hands trapped between their bodies. God, he loved her hands. He loved her hands, and her ankles, and her nose, and her eyes, he loved her wrinkles and her smile.

“What are you thinking?” he asked her, and when she tilted her head back to face him, he saw that there were tears standing in the corners of her eyes.

“Please don’t ask me,” she answered softly, “because then I’ll have to tell you.”

He kissed her forehead to let her know he understood, and wrapped his arms tightly around her, letting her burrow into his chest. Harry caught sight of the clock over the top of her head, and for the rest of his life he wished he hadn’t.

***

 

The early morning sun was wan and pale, reflecting back off the choppy water, the wind whipping her long coat around her ankles as they stood at the edge of the dock. The shadows of the night had burned away; the day had come, and with it the boat that was to take her away from him forever. The captain was anxious to get going and not afraid to let them know it, but Ruth took the time for one more kiss, leaning up to brush Harry’s lips with her own. “Let me go,” she breathed, easing herself out of the circle of his arms, walking resolutely away from him, away from London, away from her whole life. He watched her go, a phantom fading into the fog; he shoved his hands in his pockets, unable to look away until the boat finally drifted out of sight.

“Godspeed, my Ruth,” he said, bowing his head and walking back to his car, feeling an empty shell of himself.


	2. Chapter One

_Five years later..._  

In the days after Ros’s funeral, Harry found his thoughts drifting more and more to those who had gone before her. Tom, Zoe, Danny, Fiona, Colin, Adam, Zaf, Jo, Malcolm, Ruth…their names and faces danced accusingly in the darkness every time he closed his eyes, half of them dead, every one of them gone. Their shadows followed him everywhere he turned. Echoes of laughter, memories of fond smiles and desperate heartaches washed over him every time he stepped through the pods.

But when he looked around the Grid, he knew that there was not a single person left who remembered Ruth. Which meant there was no one left who remembered Tom, or Zoe, or Danny, or any of the dozen or so others whose names were engraved on the memorial wall downstairs. Only he carried on, only he continued to move through this world, walking the walls and standing guard against a faceless, ever changing evil. Working in the darkness to defend people who would never know his name, never know the sacrifices made, the lives lost to ensure their freedom.

There were new faces everywhere he looked now. His team was good, more than capable, but he couldn’t trust them. He wasn’t sure he had it in him, any more; to trust, to care, to place his hopes in other people, only to have them taken from him, again and again and again.

They knew it, too, Beth and Lucas and Dimitri. They knew that Harry didn’t trust them, and Harry knew they resented him for it.

He left them alone on the Grid late one evening, pouring over charts and bickering, the way they so often did when Harry wasn’t around to loom over them like some distant, disapproving father. He’d gone to the Home Office, to give a briefing on their latest disaster.

Beth and Dimitri were in the midst of a heated argument about said disaster, Tariq their unwilling referee, when the call came in from reception.

“What?” Beth snapped into the receiver, still staring daggers at Dimitri.

“We’ve had walk-in, miss. A lady. She’s asking to see Sir Harry, but she won’t give us her name. We wouldn’t have bothered you, only she gave us a code word. Evershed.”

Beth wracked her brain, but the word meant nothing to her. Reluctantly she covered the phone’s mouthpiece with her hand and asked Dimitri, “Does the word ‘Evershed’ mean anything to you?”

Dimitri shook his head.

“Sir Harry left word, miss,” the man on the phone rushed on, “if anyone is to ever come here and say that word he wishes to be notified immediately. He said any time, no matter where he is. 

Beth stared at the phone in bewilderment. What could possibly mean so much to Harry?

“Where have you put her?” she asked.

“Room three, miss.”

“Right,” Beth said. “Keep an eye on her, we’ll be there in a minute.”

“What is it?” Dimitri asked as Beth hung up the phone.

She ignored him, saying instead, “Tariq, can you pull up the cameras for room three, main floor?” She wanted to get a good look at their walk in first. Whoever this woman was, she knew enough to walk right up the steps into Thames House and ask for Harry, and as far as Beth was concerned, that made her dangerous.

“You got it,” Tariq said, and a moment later the feed from the holding room filled the monitor in front of him. The three of them crowded around it, staring at the rather plain woman twisting her hands together in her lap as she sat alone on a hard plastic chair.

“Who is she?” Dimitri wondered. Beth was asking herself the same thing. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the woman, aside from her startling grey eyes; she had none of the poise or tension one might expect to see from a fellow spy sitting alone in an MI-5 holding room. She looked frightened, anxious perhaps, but not dangerous in any way.

“No idea,” Beth answered, “But I think we need to call Harry.”

Dimitri caught her wrist as she reached for the phone. “He said he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“I think he’ll want to know about this. I have a bad feeling, Dimitri.”

He studied her face for a moment, their argument forgotten. He released her wrist without another word, and she dialed Harry’s number, pressing the speaker button so the three of them could hear.

“This better be important,” Harry growled into the phone.

Dimitri gave Beth a little nudge, and she answered, “There’s a woman here, Harry. A walk-in. She gave the code word ‘Evershed’.”

There was a pause before he spoke again. “What does she look like?” he asked.

“Dark hair, medium height, light-colored eyes,” Dimitri supplied.

“What sort of clothes is she wearing?”

Dimitri and Tariq both turned to Beth, who glared at them for a moment before returning her attention to the woman on the monitor.

“Clothes?” she repeated. “I’m sorry Harry, the only words that come to mind are frumpy bohemian.”

There was a long moment of silence, and when next Harry spoke, his breathing was ragged, uneven, and Beth had to stifle a giggle at the sudden image of stately, crotchety old Sir Harry running across the Home Office.

“Bring her to the Grid. Have her wait in my office. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The line went dead.

“Ten minutes? What’s he going to do, run all the way from the Home Office to Thames House?” Dimitri asked, incredulous.

Beth shrugged. “Let’s go and fetch her, shall we?”

As they made their way towards the holding room, Beth and Dimitri had a hushed, furious argument about who this woman might be, and whether it was wise to do as Harry asked. They never, _ever_ brought an outsider onto the Grid. That was rule number one. But given Harry’s mood since her arrival on the Grid some months before, Beth was inclined to do as he asked, however foolish and dangerous it might seem. Dimitri disagreed, but he was powerless to stop her.

The same young man who’d called Beth about the walk-in was standing quietly outside the door to room three.

“Has she been scanned?” Beth asked as they drew level with him.

The guard nodded seriously. “No bugs or weapons. Doesn’t even have a cell phone on her.”

No cell phone? Who didn’t carry a cell phone these days? Beth wondered. The answer of course, was someone who didn’t want to be found, and that notion alarmed her.

“We’ll take it from here,” Dimitri told him, and the man gave them a little nod before setting off back to his desk.

As they stepped into the room the woman vaulted to her feet, her mouth open to speak, but when she caught sight of them she backed away, looking for all the world like some frightened, cornered animal.

“I’ll only speak to Harry,” she said, holding her hands out in front of her as if to ward off imminent attack. _She knows Harry,_ Beth realized. _Who the bloody hell is she?_

Dimitri spoke softly, trying not to scare the woman even more. “Harry’s on his way. He’s asked us to take you to wait in his office.”

The dark haired woman considered this for a long moment, during which Beth and Dimitri exchanged a bewildered glance.

“All right,” she said finally, walking on leaden feet to pass between them and out into the hallway.

Beth led the way, Dimitri taking up the rear, each of them deeply concerned by the fact that their charge seemed to know precisely where she was going.

They made their way through the halls, to the lifts. Rode silently to the floor that housed Section-D, exited the car. The stranger walked confidently up to the pods, waited precisely the correct amount of time before stepping out onto the Grid. Beth came to stand beside her, watching her face closely as her soft grey eyes scanned the space before her.

“It’s like waking from a dream,” the woman said softly. She looked so… _small_ , Beth thought, so sad and scared and lonely, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle, isolated from the flurry of activity that surrounded them. There were still quite a few people about, the night shift coming on and taking over, but they moved around the intruder without taking note of her, as if she were a ghost, trapped unseen inside the brick and mortar of Thames House.

Beth opened her mouth to ask what she meant, but she never got the chance.

“Harry’s office, then?” the dark haired woman asked. “I suppose you’ll have to wait with me.” Her grey eyes were fixed on his office, the red paint of the back wall and the empty chair starkly visible through the open blinds of his windows.

“I’m afraid so,” Beth answered, and together they set off across the Grid, and once again Beth’s suspicions that this woman knew MI-5 far too well for comfort were confirmed. She didn’t need to be told where to go, she just went, as if her feet were automatically piloting her down a path she had taken a thousand times before.

Dimitri went back to fill Tariq in on the situation.

Once inside Harry’s office the woman gave a great, terrible sigh and eased herself into one of the chairs against the window that looked out onto the Grid. Beth leaned up against the desk, trying to make the movement look casual, but placing herself between the woman and the door, all the same.

“I imagine he’s at the Home Office, then?” the woman asked, running a hand over her face as though in exhaustion.

“Who are you?” Beth asked, flushing slightly when she realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. The woman gave her a sad little smile.

“Are you planning to tell me your real name?” she asked.

Beth shook her head.

“There you are then.”

An awkward silence fell as the woman continued to fidget in her seat. Beth studied her, the sharp lines of her face, the way she couldn’t seem to focus her eyes on any one thing but instead shifted her gaze constantly from the floor to the walls to Beth and back again. She was clearly scared out of her mind, but why? And what did it have to do with Harry?

“Is Adam Carter here?” the woman asked suddenly.

Beth shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know that name.”

Her charge frowned slightly.

“Zaf? That is, Zafar Younis?” Again Beth shook her head.

“Malcolm Wynn- Jones?” Her voice was rising with each question, panic flickering in the depths of her expressive face. Beth wished she had more answers, but her own fear was building as she considered the implications of the names.

“Jo Portman?” she asked, desperate now.

This time Beth had an answer. “Jo died,” she said quietly.

“Oh, God,” the woman sighed, burying her face in her hands for a moment. “What about Ros Myers?” she asked from behind her fingers, her voice so thick with sorrow that Beth almost felt embarrassed for her.

“Ros as well,” Beth answered. Ros and Jo had died before Beth came on the scene, but Lucas and Harry both grieved for them still, she knew, and the gruesome possibility that everyone else the woman had asked after was dead as well reared its ugly head. Did no one make it out of this place alive?

After another silence, the stranger spoke again, lifting her tear-streaked face to gaze directly at Beth.

“Harry told me once, long ago, that we would have time to grieve. I worry that, should the time ever come, I won’t even know where to begin.”

There was nothing Beth could say to that. It didn’t sound like the sort of thing Harry would say. The sentiment was comforting and kind and gentle, and those were not the sort of attributes one associated with Harry Pearce.

“How is he?” the woman asked seriously.

Beth knew exactly who the woman meant, but she decided to ask anyway.

“Who?”

“Harry.” There was something about the way the woman said his name that gave Beth pause. Something desperate, intimate, something that made her curiosity rise to an almost intolerable level.

She decided to press her luck, and gave a short, derisive laugh. “Oh, Harry’s the same as ever. Cold, bitter, deeply suspicious. We never know what he’s thinking, from one moment to the next.”

“That’s not Harry,” the woman said reprovingly, her brow furrowing with worry. “He has to make impossibly difficult choices on an almost daily basis but he’s not cold. He believes in what he’s doing. He cares for his team. He cares so much.” Her voice softened as she spoke of him, and for a moment Beth thought it might be nice to know this fantasy Harry.

The phone on the desk rang, breaking the tension that had begun to build between them, and Beth reached around to answer it. Reception again. She thanked the man on the phone before hanging up and returning her attention once more to the miserable woman in front of her.

“Harry’s on his way down,” Beth told her.

“Right.” The woman rose, her face grimly set as though she’d reached some sort of decision. “Let’s meet him, shall we?”

Beth reached out to stop her. “He asked for you to wait in here.”

The woman slid away from her grasp. “It’s clear you don’t trust him, and I’ve given you no reason to trust me. I would prefer to meet him out there,” she nodded toward the open space of the Grid beyond the door, “So you know I’m not trying to hide anything.”

Beth had a retort ready, something about how this was MI-5 and everyone had something to hide, but she kept it to herself. The possibility that she might finally learn what the hell this was all about was too tempting. She nodded tersely, and followed the woman back out into the Grid.

Dimitri and Tariq saw them exit the office, and rushed over to where they stood, Beth with her arms crossed in front of her, the stranger worrying with the tie around the waist of her coat, her eyes fixed on the floor.

“What’s this?” Dimitri asked.

“Harry’s on his way down,” Beth told him shortly.

It only took a moment for him to appear, stepping through the pods only to come up short when he caught sight of the woman in front of him. Silence stretched thick between them as they stared at one another, eyes searching each other’s faces as though seeing them for the first time. Though Beth couldn’t see the woman’s face, she imagined there was an expression there much like the one Harry wore, a look of such desperate hope and longing that Beth had to fight the urge to look away. Harry was breathing heavily, and Beth couldn’t help but wonder if he had run the whole way, after all.

***

The sight of her pulled him up short. She stood there, a ghost made flesh, her eyes bright in the artificial light of the Grid. _Ruth_.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He had been trying to beat back his hopes, certain that it couldn’t possibly be her, unwilling to face the devastation that would drown him if he returned to find some other woman in his office, speaking her name. But she was here.

She was here.

*** 

“Harry,” Ruth said, her voice ragged, on the edge of tears, and the stillness between them shattered.

They did not run, did not fling themselves into one another’s arms; they simply walked, slowly, deliberately, until they collided, Harry’s arms enfolding her protectively, her face burrowed against his chest as her shoulders began to shake with silent sobs. He stared down at her in wonder, unable to speak. Beth and Dimitri shifted uncomfortably as the intimate scene unfolded before them, unsure if Harry wanted them to stay, unsure if he wanted them to leave.

The moments dragged on unbearably, but finally Harry moved. He gently kissed the top of her head before he caught her chin in his hand, raising her tear-streaked face to gaze once more into her eyes.

He said nothing, but she responded to his question anyway, shifting slightly in his arms to reach into her coat pocket. Beth felt Dimitri tense beside her, ready to spring into action should this scene of sweet reunion turn dangerous, but there was no need. She simply pulled a folded photograph from her pocket, handing it off to Harry who stared at it, dumbfounded.

“What-“

“She’s my daughter, Harry,” Ruth said, her voice no more than a choked whisper. “She’s my daughter, and someone’s taken her.”

She buried her face once more against his chest, crying audibly now, while Harry stared at the photograph in his hand.

“Harry-“ Dimitri started, but Harry cut across him.

“Right, you three,” he gestured towards them with the photograph. “Meeting room, five minutes. And rustle up some tea, would you?”

Without another word, he led Ruth back towards the meeting room, his arm still wrapped around her, his eyes still fixed on the photograph Beth and Dimitri had yet to see.

 

“Tea?” Beth asked, incredulous. “Since when do we have tea for a briefing?”

 

No one answered her.

 


	3. Chapter Two

Harry closed the door to the meeting room behind them, Ruth still tucked up under his arm. He guided her to a chair and she collapsed into it, furiously rubbing the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand 

He still couldn’t believe it was her, still couldn’t believe any of this was really happening. Ruth looked much the same to his eyes, a bit older, perhaps, a bit sadder, but then he imagined she saw the same changes writ large across his own face. She was struggling to get herself back under control; he could almost feels the wheels turning in her mind, could almost see personal Ruth shrinking back behind her professional façade.

“Ruth-“

“We only have five minutes, Harry,” she said, her voice steadier than it had been a few moments before, but still wracked with grief. “Your team, do you trust them?”

Harry sank into the chair next to her, wishing he’d kept her in his arms. Wishing he’d never let her go, not today, and not that day five years ago when he’d watched her sailing out of his life. He thought then that was the end, that he would never see her again, and now that she was back, there were so many things he longed to say to her. But how could he? She hadn’t returned because she loved him, hadn’t returned because he’d made things right; she’d returned because she needed help. She needed Sir Harry, she needed the Head of Section-D. She didn’t need the Harry who loved her.

To business, then.

“To a point,” he answered truthfully. “They’re a bit rough around the edges and we haven’t had much time to get…acquainted with one another, but they’re good people. I trust them with this.”

Ruth nodded. She looked for a moment as though she were going to say something else, but the door opened and their solitude was broken.

Dimitri, Beth, and Tariq shuffled in, Tariq carrying the tea on a tray. He sat it down on the table as the others took their seats, and Harry set about pouring a cup for Ruth. She accepted it wordlessly, staring unseeing into the cup in her hands, and the sight of her so lost, so vulnerable, tugged at Harry’s heartstrings.

“Lucas?” he asked, looking around and noting the man’s absence for the first time.

“He’s watching over an asset,” Beth answered.

Harry nodded. “Right then. To business. Dimitri Levendis, Beth Bailey, Tariq Masood,” he gestured to each of them in turn, “This is Ruth Evershed.”

Ruth gave them a wan little smile before returning her attention to the rapidly chilling cup of tea in her hands.

“Tariq, can you put this up on the monitor?” he asked, handing over the photograph. Tariq took it and crossed the room to the pile of electronics in the corner.

Harry leaned back in his chair, wondering where to begin.

“Ruth was an intelligence analyst with us several years ago. She was instrumental in unraveling a conspiracy to transport terror suspects abroad for torture. In the course of that investigation, it became necessary for her to go into hiding, and so officially, Ruth Evershed is dead.”

Even knowing that she wasn’t, knowing that she was sitting beside him, it hurt to say those words aloud, to even contemplate that possibility.

“How did you manage that, by the way?” Ruth asked suddenly, and Harry fought the urge to smile. She always had to untangle everything, always had to wriggle her way to the heart of any plot. She couldn’t help herself, he knew. He loved that about her.

“We took an unclaimed body from the morgue, tossed it into the Thames, fished it back out again, and identified it as you.”

“That easy,” she remarked. He caught the hint of reproach in her tone, but that was a conversation for another time, when Beth and Dimitri weren’t sitting across the table from them, hanging on their every word.

“It’s up,” Tariq said from the corner of the room, and sure enough, he’d managed to get the photograph blown up on the screen. It showed a little girl, four or five at most, with dark blonde hair and her mother’s huge grey eyes, giggling as she played in the snow.

Ruth took a deep breath, sensing it was her turn to speak. Harry turned slightly in his chair to listen, wishing it wouldn’t seem inappropriate for him to wrap his arm around her again.

“This is my daughter, Emilia. That photograph was taken just a few weeks ago.” She stopped, as though unsure of how to continue, unable to keep her gaze on the image of her little girl. Harry found he could not take his eyes from it. _Who is she_? He wondered. _Where did she come from?_

“Walk us through what happened, Ruth,” Harry said, as gently as he could.

Ruth took a deep breath. “Right. I dropped her off at daycare this morning, and went into work as usual. Before you ask-“ Beth had opened her mouth to speak- “No, I haven’t seen anyone unusual hanging about. No unusual cars, no strangers in sunglasses. It was just a normal day.” She put her teacup down, clasped her hands in her lap, and looked once at Harry for reassurance before continuing. “I went to work. I was there maybe two, three hours when I got the call from the daycare. They said Emilia wasn’t feeling well, but not to worry, her father picked her up.”

Harry’s heart sank in his chest. He had a sudden image of Ruth, in a little house by the seaside, holding hands with some faceless stranger as they watched their child at play. He saw her smile, could almost feel how happy she had been. How happy she had been without him.

“Which is impossible,” Ruth said firmly, and Harry felt a wild hope surge through him.

“You’re sure?” Dimitri asked, leaning forward slightly, never taking his eyes from her face. Watching for signs of a lie, Harry knew.

Ruth nodded. “I’m positive. There’s absolutely no way her father was anywhere near that school today.”

Before anyone could ask any more uncomfortable questions about Emilia’s parentage, Harry stepped back into the interview.

“What happened next?” he asked.

“I left work immediately. Went straight down to my car. I was going to go to the daycare, see if they had any more information for me. And that’s when I found the photograph. In the driver’s seat. There’s a message, on the back.”

“On it,” Tariq said, jumping up from his chair. A moment later the image on the screen flashed, changed to show the stark white back of the photograph and the words “London tomorrow 9:00 a.m.”

“That’s when I knew,” Ruth continued, her voice close to breaking. “This isn’t some random kidnapping, they know who I am and they want something from me.”

“You haven’t had any other contact with them?” Harry asked.

She shook her head. “I went to the daycare anyway, but all they could tell me was that the man who’d taken Emilia was British, tall, with dark hair. They didn’t even look to see what kind of car he was in. After that, I came straight here.”

“From where?” Beth asked. They all turned to face her, slightly confused. “You said she was in hiding. She still hasn’t told us where she’s been living.” Beth sounded slightly defensive about the whole thing.

“Paris,” Ruth whispered, so quietly Harry wasn’t sure anyone else had heard her.

_“Where’s your spirit of Atlanticism?” She’d asked him, her tone playful, light. “Where’s your spirit of romance?” He’d responded. Her eyes dropped to his lips, and then back to her hands, twisting the napkin between her fingers. He’d pushed too far too fast, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Something about her made him feel reckless, hopeful, for the first time in a very long while._

“Paris?” Beth repeated, clearly surprised.

“I know, it was stupid, being so close to home,” Ostensibly Ruth was talking to Beth, but all her attention was focused on Harry. “I think a part of me hoped someone would look for me there.”

 _I did,_ Harry thought, but he knew now was neither the time nor the place to tell her that.

“So the question is, what do you have that someone would be willing to risk kidnapping a child to get their hands on it?” Dimitri asked.

Ruth shrugged, her eyes rolling slightly upward as she ran through the list of possibilities in her head.

“You were just an analyst, right? I mean, there can’t have been that many secrets that only you were privy to.” It was Beth who spoke this time, her voice gentle but her eyes hard as she stared at Ruth.

“While she was here Ruth had my complete confidence. There was not a secret I had she did not share,” Harry spoke with some heat. He’d probably overstepped his bounds, revealed too much, but really? _Just an analyst?_ Ruth wasn’t _just_ an anything.

He didn’t miss the flicker of suspicion on Beth’s face. He knew Ruth would hate that, would hate anyone thinking that their relationship had been…improper, but there was no help for it now.

“I have been thinking about it, since I got the call this morning,” Ruth continued in that same quiet voice. “Harry, I think it’s Baghdad.”

 _Dear Ruth,_ he thought. It was a reasonable assumption, a secret big enough, dangerous enough to warrant risking a child’s life and the wrath of MI-5, but he knew it wasn’t the right one. Before he could answer, Dimitri was back at it, digging around in their history.

“What about Baghdad?” he asked.

“There was a clandestine operation-“

Harry cut her off before she could say more. “It’s not Baghdad,” he said firmly. “That came to a head a few years ago.”     

She turned to him sharply, mouth open to ask the question, but he was answering it before she had a chance to speak.

“The uranium is safe. The only people still alive who know anything about it are sitting in this room, I assure you.”

He hoped she understood what he meant. That in the bloodbath surrounding Mani’s attempts to get his hands on the uranium, Harry had managed to keep the truth about the whole thing well-hidden. Lucas was the only member of the team who’d rescued him still living, and Lucas had never known about the uranium. Mani, Hillier, even that bloody American Libby were all dead and gone, and no one the wiser. Harry was confident that the secret stash of uranium had nothing to do with what had happened to Emilia.

“Uranium?” Beth repeated shrilly, bringing Harry back to the present.

“The less you know about it, the better,” he said in what he hoped was an authoritative, finite sort of tone.

“If it’s not Baghdad, then what?” Ruth asked, her eyes searching his face. How many times had they sat like this, he wondered, around a crowded table, working together as though no one else in the world existed, fighting through the mess to reach the heart of some unsolvable problem? She usually got there first, in the end, usually connected the dots faster than anyone, rushing into his office with that triumphant look on her face. This time, though, she looked as lost as he felt.

He spread his hands helplessly before him.

“You told us Ruth had your complete confidence while she was here,” Beth said slowly, as though afraid of how her words might be received, “And it’s obvious you are…fond of each other.” She had the decency to blush, at least. “Is it possible that this isn’t about Ruth at all, that someone’s using her to get to you?”

Harry had been thinking just the same thing only moments before, but he wished that Beth hadn’t given voice to his deepest worry. It would be possible, more than possible. It had happened before. _Christ,_ he thought, _have I done it again? Put her in danger, just by loving her?_

“Yes,” he answered shortly. “It would be possible.” He took a breath. “You know how long I’ve been here. You know what I’ve done. Do you really think it would be even remotely feasible to isolate one single incident that would account for all this before 9 o’clock tomorrow morning?”

Ruth wasn’t looking at him any more. She had slumped forward in her chair, closing in on herself. He could feel her walls going up, could feel her shutting herself away from him. He hated it, hated losing the closeness he had just begun to feel with her again. Hated himself for being the cause of it.

“We can pull up Ruth’s old files,” Tariq suggested. “Cross-reference them with the chatter we’ve had lately about possible attacks. We may not find anything, but it would give us something to do, while we wait.”

Harry felt a swell of appreciation for this young man. Giving him an out, not letting go of the chance that maybe this hadn’t anything to do with Harry at all. He checked his watch. Half-past eight. Twelve and a half hours to go until they made contact.

“Do it,” he said tersely. Tariq did as he was bid, and quietly left the room.

“I can arrange a safe house for the night, get Ruth something to eat,” Beth offered, already halfway out of her chair.

“No, thank you,” Harry said firmly, glaring at the looks of surprise on their faces. “Officially, Ruth is still dead. I don’t want anything in the system about her. Some of the people involved in the plot that cost her her freedom hold positions of power, and some of them still hold grudges.”

“You did shank Oliver Mace with a wine glass,” Ruth muttered wryly from her chair, and Harry was pleased to see that though Beth and Dimitri looked startled by this revelation, they seemed a little impressed, too. They didn’t care much for Mace, either, it would appear. As far as Harry was concerned, his only regret about that little incident was that he hadn’t killed Mace outright.

“He had it coming,” Harry answered darkly.

“She can’t stay here tonight Harry,” Beth protested, as though Ruth weren’t sitting right in front of her. “Look at the state of her. When was the last time you’ve had something to eat, Ruth?”

Ruth gave a tired little smile. “I am beginning to regret skipping breakfast this morning,” she answered, “But while I appreciate your concern, my daughter is missing. I’m not interested in food right now.”

“Nonsense,” Harry told her, rising from his chair. “Tariq, Beth, and Dimitri can start combing through the files. You’re coming with me.”

He didn’t care about the look Beth and Dimitri exchanged, didn’t care what they might think. He didn’t know who had taken Emilia, didn’t have any idea how he was going to get her back, but he was determined to take care of Ruth while they waited for more information.

“Harry-“ Ruth started to protest. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, wanted to say _just let me help you,_ but he didn’t. Instead he said, “Wait for me outside, Ruth. I’ll only be a moment.”

She glared daggers at him, but old habits die hard, and in the end she did as he requested.

Harry turned to Beth and Dimitri. “I’ll take charge of her tonight. Get her something to eat. She can sleep at mine. In the spare bedroom,” he added, when he saw Beth’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. “My house is a safe as anywhere, and we can put her there without anyone the wiser.”

“And in the meantime, what? You want us to be up all night trying to find a needle in a haystack?” It was the first time Beth had really been impertinent with him. He was wondering when this moment would come, when her independence and instinct for self-preservation would buck against the necessity for taking orders. Harry supposed he had it coming, in a way. He didn’t trust them, didn’t praise them, and yet he still expected them to do precisely what he asked without question.

“Honestly, no. I know Tariq means well, and I would never say this in front of Ruth, but I think the chances of us finding out who these people are before 9:00 tomorrow morning are slim to none. They won’t kill the girl before then, she’s too valuable. They’ll keep her alive for leverage. We’ll find out who they are when they contact us, and go from there. I would appreciate it if you took the time to at least attempt to comb through some of the files, but I agree it’s probably wasted effort.”

Beth nodded, appeased, utterly unaware of how difficult it had been for him to say those words, of the rage welling inside him at his own helplessness. The entirety of the British intelligence network at his disposal, and he felt there was nothing he could do. “We’ll run her picture through the face-recognition software, see if she’s been caught on CCTV,” She told him. Probably as hopeless as Tariq’s data search, but Harry appreciated the effort all the same.

“And check the latest arrivals from Paris, see if anyone suspicious has come into the country in the last few hours,” Dimitri suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Harry said, figuring now was as good a time as any to start rewarding them for their work. “And get Lucas in here,” he added.

He left them with that, the pair of them standing side-by-side and watching him like he was a suspect they badly needed to crack.

On the other side of the door Ruth was fuming.

“If you think I’m going to just run out for curry while my child is being held God only knows where by God only knows who-“

“They’re looking for connections to old files and scanning CCTV for her face. They’re tracking down everyone suspicious who’s entered the country today. You haven’t eaten since yesterday, and we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow. Please, Ruth, you need to rest. I need you here with me tomorrow, and I can’t have you passing out from starvation in the middle of a rescue operation.”

It came out a bit harsher than he would have liked, considering that she’d only just re-entered his life about a half hour ago, but he needed her to understand that he was only trying to help.

“You need me,” she repeated, grey eyes searching his face. He’d almost forgotten what that was like, how she could see straight through to his heart with just a glance.

“Always, Ruth.”

 

 


	4. Chapter Three

“What did I miss?” Lucas asked, crossing the Grid to where Tariq, Beth, and Dimitri were furiously combing through paper files while the facial recognition software whirred on a laptop near by 

Beth handed over Ruth’s personnel file, dug out of storage only a few moments before. “Harry’s favorite intelligence analyst has returned from the dead. Her daughter’s been kidnapped, and we’re trying to figure out why.”

Lucas leafed through the file, stopping near the end when he reached the Cotterdam section.

“Jesus,” he muttered, “Have you looked at this?”

Tariq swiveled around his chair. Harry and Ruth had been gone for perhaps forty-five minutes, and this was the first time he’d looked up from his computer.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Little miss mousy had to go into hiding because she pushed some guy in front of a train,” Beth answered.

Dimitri whistled. “It’s always the ones you least expect, isn’t it?”

Beth had to agree, it was difficult to fathom. Difficult to picture the shy, timid, fidgety woman who’d cried in Harry’s arms pushing the head of security for southeast prisons in front of train. Difficult, but not impossible. Stranger things had happened, and she knew Harry wasn’t telling them everything. While else ask for five minutes alone with her? Why else de-rail the interview when they’d gotten so close to finding out who the child’s father was? Beth for one didn’t blindly accept Ruth’s statement that he couldn’t possibly be involved; no one could just walk out of a daycare with a child these days. He would have to have been very convincing indeed, and what would be more convincing than a sick child rushing into her father’s arms?

“There’s a video,” Tariq said, having returned to his computer, and sure enough, there it was. CCTV, grainy, but plain as day. Ruth Evershed, pushing a man in front of train.

“But it could be a fake, right?” Dimitri asked, his face creased with a worried frown. Beth knew he wanted to believe the best about Ruth, knew that was just the sort of person he was. Dimitri wasn’t made for this, she thought. He had too much heart. Not like her. Not like Lucas. Not like Harry.

“It’s pretty low quality to begin with, so it would be fairly easy to manipulate. The corruption of the original file makes it difficult to determine what’s legit and what’s been tampered with.”

Lucas grunted. “And nothing in any of her old files to warrant child-snatching?”

Beth shook her head. “Lucas, there are so bloody many of them!” She wanted to tear her hair out; it had seemed innocuous enough, going through some old files, but the sheer number of them was daunting. The woman had had a hand in every single Section D operation for four years. It appeared Harry had been telling the truth when he’d spoken of how much he’d trusted her. 

“And there’s always the possibility that this is directed at Harry, not her, in which case…” Dimitri left it hanging.

That was a prospect none of them wanted to consider. Harry had been around for so long, first as a soldier, then a spy, then a section head, that the list of people who might want something from him was too long to even consider. Beth had the sinking feeling they were just going to have to wait for morning, and she hated it. She hated feeling like she was two steps behind her enemy.

“What the hell is that?” Lucas asked sharply, pointing to the laptop behind Tariq. It went blurry for a moment as the face recognition stuttered to a halt, and then the program stopped altogether, replaced by what appeared to be video feed of someone’s empty kitchen.

Harry’s kitchen.

Tariq was typing furiously, swearing under his breath. “It’s a hack. Remote feed. No idea where it’s coming from.”

Lucas and Beth exchanged a glance, and she dove for the phone.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she groaned, but there was no answer. She swore in frustration when she got his voicemail. “Harry’s not answering his bloody phone!”

And why the hell not? A child missing, a woman returned from the dead; why wouldn’t Harry answer his phone?

Unless he couldn’t.

Beth felt her stomach drop to the floor, but Lucas was already scrambling an emergency response team and Dimitri had rushed off to liberate some weapons.

She turned. “Tariq, if we take the van can you keep that feed going? We can’t reach Harry and we need to know what’s going on.”

Tariq nodded seriously, already on his feet. “There’s wifi in the van. As long as they stay connected we should be able to see what’s happening. And I can use the equipment in the van to try to trace the hack. We’ll be slow but-“

“There’s nothing else for it. Lucas has a team on the way.”

Dimitri came running back, pressing a pistol into each of their hands.

“Let’s go.”

***

“Come on, come on, come on,” Beth muttered under her breath, drumming her fingers restlessly on the armrest of the seat where she perched in the back of the wildly careening van. She knew Lucas was doing his best, but the van was slow, and the clock was ticking. So far the image of Harry’s kitchen had remained dark, static, but it didn’t take that long to pick up a curry. He and Ruth would be there any second and then….

She didn’t want to contemplate what could happen next.

Tariq was still furiously trying to trace the hack, his vocabulary growing more sulfurous with each passing second. Lucas and Dimitri were up front, and Beth was sat with nothing to do but stare at the image of Harry’s empty kitchen.

And then the image changed; the lights flicked on, and she could hear the sounds of footsteps as Harry and Ruth entered the frame. She leaned forward, half in curiosity and half in horror, turning up the volume as she watched the scene unfold.

*** 

Ruth followed Harry on leaden feet, dropping into a chair by his kitchen table, wrapping her coat that much tighter around her. She felt cold, and exhausted, and horrified, like she’d never be safe or happy ever again. Which, she supposed, she probably wouldn’t.

“Wine?” Harry asked her softly as he deposited their dinner on the table.

“Yes please,” she answered, trying hard not to think about the last time they’d shared a glass of wine together.

_“Well, it would have to be someone whose conversation you enjoyed, yet who understood the need sometimes for quiet,” he said, and she felt her heart quiver in her chest. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes from his face. Was he really saying what she thought he was saying? “Somebody with a gentle sense of humor, principled, but not foolish…or naïve.” She’d grinned then, just for a moment. She couldn’t help it. He could be so bloody charming when he wanted to be, so kind, so funny. You wouldn’t think it, just to look at him, that Harry Pearce could be a funny man, but he made her laugh. Made her feel like her heart was growing inside her chest. Made her feel like running as far and as fast as she could. “Good qualities,” she said, to have something to say, to fight down the panic rising in her chest. “You don’t often find them in one person,” he told her, and she couldn’t help but drop her eyes to his lips for just a moment, to imagine for an instant what it might be like to kiss him…_

“Where did you go?” he asked her quietly, placing a glass of white wine in front of her.

_“White Burgundy; thermobaric bombs,” he said thoughtfully as he topped off her glass yet again. “Quite a species, aren’t we?”_

“I was thinking about Emilia,” she lied. She lied, but then it was true as her thoughts turned to her precious little girl, and her stomach did another somersault.

“Tell me about her,” he said, coming to sit across the table from her, smiling at her sadly as he set about unpacking their dinner.

God but that was the last thing she wanted to do, to sit here in Harry’s kitchen and tell him about her daughter, all the while knowing in the darkest corner of her heart there was a very good chance she would never see her again. Never hold her again, never hear her laugh again, never have the chance to see her baby girl playing with her father.

Ruth had to head off that line of thinking or else she’d be a crying mess again, and so she did as he asked.

“She’s a funny little thing,” Ruth said sadly, taking a sip of wine. “She’s always inventing these little games and trying to make me laugh. She sets up her stuffed animals all in a row, has them put on little plays for me. Speaks better French then I do.” Her voice trailed off as she fought to hold back the tears that threatened to spill once again. If he kept looking at her like that, with sorrow and love radiating out of his kind brown eyes, she’d have to tell him, and then where would they be?

“Ruth,” he said her name with such warmth, such heart that she couldn’t help but remember how good it had been to be held in the circle of his arms, how safe, how protected she’d felt, even if only for a few hours one night so many years ago.

“She’s yours, Harry,” Ruth breathed, unable to stop herself.

*** 

“She’s yours, Harry,” Ruth said on the monitor, and Beth rocked back on her heels as though someone had struck her in the face.

“Shit,” Tariq whispered, bowing his head.

“She’s your daughter, Harry,” Ruth said, as if she had to clarify her last statement, and Beth found she couldn’t look away. The camera was positioned so she could see Ruth’s face, not Harry’s, and what she saw there was heartbreak and misery of a kind she couldn’t recall having ever seen before. She wished she were somewhere else, anywhere else, far away from the tragedy unfolding before her.

“Two minutes,” Lucas called from the front of the van.

Two minutes was an eternity.

***

_She’s your daughter, Harry._

The words set off a roaring in his head. His daughter.

He’d wondered, when he first saw the first photograph. There was something about her face that reminded him of Catherine when she was that age, not that he was around all that much when his children were small. He’d tried to quash that hope in the meeting room, certain that if he were to entertain the possibility for too long he’d go mad.

And now he knew.

Ruth was staring at him, desperation on her face, but he found he could not speak.

“I wanted to tell you, Harry,” she said in a rush, frantic almost with the need to explain herself. “I wanted so badly to tell you. I must have written you a hundred times, but I-“

“You couldn’t,” he answered for her, hoping she understood that it wasn’t an accusation. “It wasn’t safe, Ruth. You did the right thing.” It sounded hollow, even to his own ears, but he meant every word.

“Did I?” she asked, searching his face. “She asked me, not two weeks ago, if she had a Papa. Her little friends at the daycare, you see, their fathers drop them off sometimes and she’s so bright. She notices things. She didn’t ask where her Papa was. Just if she had one.”

Harry’s heart was in his throat, emotion constricting it, making it difficult for him to speak.

“What did you tell her?” he asked.

“I said yes. I said yes, you have a Papa and he loves you very much, and one day, if we’re very lucky, we’ll get to see him again.” She lowered her eyes to her lap. “I prayed, Harry. I prayed that something would happen, that somehow I could find my way back to you. And now this…” she lost her voice, buried her face in her hands as she began to cry again, and Harry could bear it no longer.

He rose from his chair and made his way to her, easing himself down to kneel in front of her, ignoring the protests from his nearly sixty year old knees. He caught both her hands in his own, drew them away from her face, begging her without words to look at him. He needed her to look at him, needed her to know how much he loved her, that he would do anything, _anything_ for her and for this little girl who had so suddenly burst into his life.

She raised her ravaged face to gaze down at him, at their hands clasped together in her lap. “It’s my fault, Harry,” she whispered. “I did this, I wished for something to happen and now-“

The door burst open, cutting Harry’s reply short.

*** 

Lucas and Beth were the first through the door, guns drawn, brought up short by the scene that greeted them. Beth would never, ever forget it; Harry, on his knees in front of Ruth, both her hands in his, a look of such tender regret on his face that it quite stopped her heart.

“We’ve got to get you out of here, now,” Lucas barked, and Harry was on his feet in an instant, pulling Ruth up with him. “They’ve got your place bugged.”

“How-“ Ruth started to ask, but Lucas cut her off.

“Later. Right now we have to get you somewhere safe.”

The heavily armed ops team rushed Ruth and Harry from the house still hand in hand, their food left to grow cold on the table behind them.


	5. Chapter Four

By the time Beth and the rest of the team got back to Thames House, Harry and Ruth were already settled in his office, pouring over the stack of files Beth had ordered dragged up from storage. She stopped in the doorway for a moment, watching them. Harry sat in his chair behind the desk, Ruth just opposite him, their heads bowed low over the files, almost touching. They were speaking quietly to one another; Harry pointed to something on the page in front of him, and Ruth shook her head, telling him in low tones why that wasn’t the lead they were after.

How could they stand this? Beth wondered. It was evident that Harry loved this woman, and now, reunited after nearly five years apart, on the search for their missing child, they were hard at work. There were no tears, no affectionate touches, just the busy productivity of two people focused solely on their job. She had to give them credit; in their shoes she was fairly certain she would be a useless mess.

She cleared her throat to announce herself before moving through the doorway, laptop in hand.

“We’ve got a team going over your house, Harry,” she told him. “So far we’ve found three mics and cameras, but no sign of explosives or anything like that.”

Beth stepped further into the room as Lucas, Dimitri, and Tariq filed in behind her, the four of them going to sit in the semi-circle of chairs by the window. Ruth pushed away from the desk slightly so she could see them as well as Harry. Her face was haggard, but attentive, and Beth had to admire her for that.

“Any luck on the trace?” Ruth asked Tariq.

He shook his head.

“The question is why?” Beth said. “Why bug your house, and then let us know? Why take the trouble to set a trap for you, and then not spring it?”

“Power,” Lucas answered, and they all turned to stare at him.

“Explain,” Harry said tersely.

“Look, they want us to know what they’re capable of. They found Ruth, they took her child, they got into your house, they hacked the laptop. I think they’re trying to bully us, put us off our game. But more than that, Harry, I think they want you to know that they know about Emillia.”

He didn’t have to explain what he meant; every single person in the room seemed to suddenly become very interested in their shoes. Beth still couldn’t quite believe it; Harry Pearce, have an affair with an intelligence analyst under his authority? She kept looking at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to see him as Ruth did. Trying to imagine what could possibly draw a woman to a man like Harry Pearce. She thought she had the answer, thought she had seen it written all over his face as he knelt at Ruth’s feet in his kitchen. He had seemed so open, so warm and kind, and she found it difficult to reconcile that image with the Harry she knew. She wondered what had happened in the last five years, what had hardened him so, and she had the feeling that the answer was sitting in the chair beside his desk.

“Not possible,” Harry said shortly. “The only people who knew about me and Ruth besides the pair of us are dead.”

Ruth gave an involuntary little gasp, her eyes jerking up to his face. Beth remembered the list of names Ruth had grilled her with a few hours before. So they were dead, then. Wonderful.

“The letters!” Ruth exclaimed abruptly, her expression of horror replaced by one of sudden understanding.

“What?” Dimitri asked.

Ruth only had eyes for Harry though, turning in her chair to face him, more animated than she had been all night.

“I wasn’t exaggerating Harry, I really did write you letters. I kept them- stupid, I know,” she said, catching his expression, “but I did. They were in a lockbox under my bed with our passports and some cash. What if these people were watching me before they took her? What if they broke into my house and found the letters?"

“Then we’re back to thinking that this isn’t about you at all, Ruth,” Harry said slowly, “This is about me.”

Beth crossed her arms over her chest, thinking hard. What could they possibly be after? And what were the chances of them finding the little girl before it was too late?

*** 

3:00 a.m.

“Beth,” Tariq called, “I think you’ll want to see this.”

She sighed and heaved herself out of her chair, crossing to his corner of the Grid. So far, the last few hours had been less than illuminating. Harry and Ruth had had a spectacular row, the nature of which eluded Beth; the files and CCTV search had proved completely useless; and so far the only fingerprints they’d managed to pull from the photo belong to Harry and Ruth. Six hours to go, and they’d no leads. She hoped that Tariq had found something useful, but it was a small, sickly, tired sort of hope.

Ruth had appeared at Tariq’s shout, the ever-present cup of tea clutched in her hands, and she fell in behind Beth as they crossed the Grid together, silent as a shadow.

Beth couldn’t quite figure this woman out, and that fact alarmed her. Ruth had been by turns quiet and tearful, obstinate and tenacious. She was also the only person Beth had ever actually seen yell at Harry, though her words had been muffled by the glass walls of his office. Whatever she’d said had clearly rattled him, as he’d stalked off immediately afterwards, muttering to himself, leaving Ruth alone in his office, fidgeting again. What sort of woman could have that effect on Harry bloody Pearce of all people? She was pretty, in an ordinary sort of way, and yes, she was the mother of his child, but he’d only found out about that a few hours before. Not for the first time Beth wished there was someone she could ask, someone who had known them before, but there as no one and she was left to muddle through it on her own.

“What is it?” she asked, coming to a stop behind Tariq’s shoulder.

“It’s CCTV footage, from the street where the daycare is in Paris,” he explained.

“How did you manage that?” Beth asked incredulously. They hadn’t held out hope that French intelligence would come through for them in time to be of any help.

“I – erm – hacked in,” Ruth said, looking sheepish.

Beth stared at her, taken aback. The woman had been out of commission for five years, and she’d hacked the French intelligence services in the space of a few hours? She was nothing if not resourceful, was Ruth.

“Did you get a good look at our kidnapper?” Beth asked, moving her gaze from Ruth’s face to the monitor.

“It’s not as clear as I’d like, but…” Tariq trailed off as the grainy video began to play.

Beth watched, fighting back a rising tide of horror.

“That’s impossible,” she said flatly. “Lucas was in Oxford all day yesterday.”

“Are you sure?” Ruth asked quietly.

“He’s been babysitting a flighty asset. There are other agents at the house, they can vouch for him.”

“I’d like to hear that from them, if you don’t mind,” Ruth said coolly.

Beth was already reaching for the phone. Allen and Howard were good agents, they’d set this right. And anyone could alter CCTV, as Ruth herself could surely attest. Unless she _had_ pushed that bloke in front of a train…

“Where’s Lucas?” Ruth asked sharply, and Beth spun around, her eyes flitting helplessly around the semi-deserted Grid. The phone pressed to her ear continued to ring.

_Oh God, Lucas._

Allen’s phone had gone to voicemail.

“Night guard says Lucas left about fifteen minutes ago,” Tariq said quietly, hanging up his own phone. Beth couldn’t answer, couldn’t think; she just dialed Howard’s number and prayed they were wrong.

Of course, if Lucas was involved, it would explain some things. How they’d managed to plant bugs in Harry’s home, how they’d hacked the laptop, why Harry’s phone had gone to voicemail earlier.

_“This is Howard, sorry I missed you…”_

Beth practically threw the phone down in frustration.

“Call Dimitri,” she said, running a hand over her face. “We’ll get a team to the safe house in Oxford, make sure Allen and Howard are all right. Then we start looking for Lucas.” She looked up at Ruth and found those grey eyes full of pity. It turned her stomach.

“We’ve got to tell Harry,” she continued, but Ruth reached out and stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm 

“No,” she said quietly.

“Excuse me?”

“How long will it take to get a team to the safe house? Thirty minutes?” Beth nodded grudgingly. “Then please, _please_ wait until we’ve heard back from them. That footage doesn’t show Lucas with Emilia, and it could have been tampered with. There could be any one of a hundred different explanations, and there’s no point worrying Harry until we have more information.”

Beth considered her for a moment before replying. “On your head be it,” she said.

***

3:15 a.m.

She found him on the roof, which was not surprising in the least. He was staring out unseeing at the lights of London far below, his glove-shrouded hands clutching the railing so tightly that she knew if she could see his knuckles they’d be white. She shoved her own hands in the pockets of her coat and gazed at him for a time unspeaking.

He hadn’t changed much, had Harry. He’d lost a little more hair, and when he’d removed his tie a few hours earlier she’d seen that the skin of his neck was a bit looser than it had been before. He was still broad and warm and solid, a rock she could cling to. And wasn’t it odd, she thought, that after one brief night together and five long years apart she still felt this pull towards him, this unreasoning, unthinking need to be as close to him as possible?

He’d told her he loved her, all those years ago, and the memory alone was enough to make her want to weep. Was this love, then? The need to be near him, the feeling of panic and helplessness that overwhelmed her when she had to leave him behind? Was it love that made her shout at him, push him away when she needed him most?

She’d sent him a postcard, in the early days of her exile, telling him in a painfully oblique way that she loved him, that she’d given up her life for him and she would do it again in a heartbeat. She’d written him letter after letter, never to be sent, telling him about their daughter, about how she longed to see him, about her dreams that one day she would come home. To him.

And now, faced with the warm, solid reality of him, she was at a loss for words.

Harry seemed to have no such problem.

“I can feel you lurking,” he said quietly, not turning his gaze from the city before him.

He hadn’t lost that skill either, then, that ability to sense when she was near.

Ruth took a deep breath and crossed the space between them to stand beside him at the railing.

“I’m sorry I shouted,” she said quietly, not looking at him.

Harry sighed. “You’re worried about Emilia. And I don’t blame you in the least,” he added, speaking slowly, as if each word pained him to say. “This is all my fault. I cost you your life, and now I’ve put your child in danger. In your position, I’d shout, too.”

“Oh Harry,” she breathed, resting her hand lightly on his arm, needing him to feel her, to know she could never, would never hate him. “It isn’t your fault. You tried to go to prison in my place. You never even knew about Emilia. It isn’t your fault.”

He turned to her sharply, dislodging her hand in the process, his eyes hurt and angry as they flashed in the darkness.

“Isn’t it?” he demanded. “Mace framed you to punish me. Someone has taken your child – our child – and the only explanation that makes any sense is they’ve done it to get to me. You’ve suffered so much, for so long, to atone for my sins. You have every right to hate me.”

“You stupid man,” she said, hoping he could hear the affection in her strained, tired voice. It was on the tip of her tongue, the words _I love you_ just on the very edge of slipping out, when they heard the crunch of footsteps on the roof behind them. As one they turned to find Beth coming towards them, tears glistening in her eyes.

When she spoke, her words were directed at Ruth.

“They’re dead,” she said. “Allen and Howard and the asset. They’re all dead.”


	6. Chapter Five

8:50 a.m. 

The last five hours had been a tumult of horror and desperate, frenetic activity. Harry stood by Lucas’s desk in the center of the Grid, staring at the photograph of the boy who had been Lucas North, cursing himself for not seeing it sooner. Lucas’s distance, his unpredictable behavior had lately grown from a sort of moody personality defect into a truly worrying indicator of untrustworthiness, and yet Harry hadn’t seen it. He thought Lucas was just tired, just grieving for Ros and Jo, as Harry himself had been. Harry had been too consumed by his own sorrows to see what was right in front of him.

A check of Lucas’s phone records had led them a doctor named Maya Lahan, and a quick trawl through her past had connected her to John Bateman. Bateman had been a bartender in Dakar, and it was in Dakar that he had met the real Lucas North, the young man in the photograph Harry held in his hands. A young man Harry had never met.

The real Lucas North hadn’t turned up anywhere else, and all trace of John Bateman had vanished some fifteen years ago.

Just after the bombing of the British embassy in Dakar.

Lucas North, John Bateman, the embassy, Emilia; it all went round and round in Harry’s mind, an endless, frantic cacophony of memories and fears, half-forgotten images and whispered conversations.

He struggled to control it, to pull himself out of the quagmire of dread and self-doubt that threatened to drown him. He had done this, he realized. Had brought Lucas North – John Bateman, whoever – out of a Russian prison cell and back into the fold, had given him security clearances and control over the team. Bateman had chosen them, Beth and Dimitri; were they part of this, too?

Harry paused in his self-recrimination for a moment, turning his attention to the pair of them.

No, he decided; no. Beth and Dimitri seemed to be as devastated and confused as he was. He couldn’t see either of them being involved in this. There had been a million indications of Bateman’s impending betrayal over the last few weeks, but Beth and Dimitri remained true.

He hoped.

Harry had forbidden them to refer to the man who had been Section Chief as anything other than John Bateman, and Harry wanted to be sure none of them forgot that he had never truly been a friend to them. Lucas North was a ghost, no more than a figment of what might have been.

It should have been easier for Ruth, who had never worked with the man who called himself Lucas North, but she seemed to have been hit as hard as by the news as any of them. A member of Harry’s team had betrayed him, betrayed _them_ , and she had taken that personally. At the moment she was sat behind Harry’s desk, easily visible through the glass walls of his office, dark hair spilling across her face as she poured intently over a stack of files. The sight of her calmed him, as it always did. She was here, she was real, and whatever happened next, whatever John Bateman had done, Harry was determined to make it right. He had to, for her sake. For Emilia’s sake.

“Harry!” Beth’s voice was shrill as it echoed through the Grid, and Harry saw Ruth leap up from behind the desk, rushing toward the sound, before he turned his attention away from her and onto Beth.

“What is it?” he asked, as Beth and Dimitri all but ran toward him.

“We found her, we found Maya Lahan.”

Ruth made her way to his side, and not for the first time that night he fought the urge to wrap his arms around her. She looked wan and pale, even more exhausted than he was, but she remained fixed on their purpose.

“Where?” he demanded, and Beth passed him the print-out of a grainy CCTV image.

“She’s in a hotel in the city. I’ve contacted the staff, and they sent over the footage from their private cameras. Tariq’s going through it now, checking to see if Bateman is with her. Both of their phones are turned off, so we can’t track them that way, but we can use the cameras to build a timeline.”

“Do we go in?” Dimitri asked.

Harry hesitated. He doubted that Bateman had orchestrated this whole thing alone, and until the kidnappers made contact, he was hesitant to overplay his hand. What if Bateman was in the hotel with her? If he wasn’t, what if he had people watching her? It could very well be that the moment they moved in on her, Bateman would cut his losses, kill Emilia, and run; that had to be avoided at all costs.

He opened his mouth to say so, but was cut short but the piercing ring of his cell phone. He checked his watch.

_9:00 a.m._

They were out of time.

Next to him, Ruth gasped as the same realization dawned on her.

Harry pulled his phone from his pocket, answering the call and switching it to speaker. Without a second thought, he reached out and took hold of Ruth’s hand. She grasped him fiercely as he spoke.

“Pearce.”

“Harry,” came the answer. It was Bateman.

He wanted to shout, wanted to roar his murderous intent, wanted to fling the phone against the wall, but he didn’t. _Self-control, self-denial, these are things which keep us together in this job._

“Lucas,” he said. He didn’t want Bateman to know how much they knew, didn’t want to spook him.

“I apologize for my hasty departure earlier. I knew the minute Ruth hacked into French security you’d be on to me.” The man sounded tense, but present, in control. “She’s too smart for her own good, that one.”

Harry bit back a sharp reply, saying instead, “What do you want, Lucas?”

“My name is John Bateman, Harry. And I want Albany.”

_Jesus Christ._

_***_

Ruth clung to Harry’s hand, her lifeline in this sea of madness. She could feel the rage rolling off of him in waves, could see it in his face as he struggled to keep his voice steady.

“You know I can’t give you Albany,” he said, giving Ruth's hand a little squeeze. She was certain it was meant to be reassuring, but her heart was pounding in her chest and she was finding it difficult to breathe.

“You can, and you will,” Bateman answered. “A straight swap, Albany for the girl.”

“And if I don’t?” Harry asked, his voice deadly quiet. Beth and Dimitri were staring at him, but Ruth found she couldn’t look at him. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe, tried to focus on the warmth of his hand, wrapped around her own.

“If you don’t, she dies.”

She’d been expecting that response, but it hurt her just the same. _She dies._ The words twisted in her gut like a knife.

They were all watching her now, she knew; even with her eyes closed she could feel their pity and their fear for her. She hated it, hated feeling this weak and useless.

“How do we know you haven’t killed her already?” Ruth demanded, the sudden intrusion of her voice into the conversation surprising everyone, herself included.

Bateman laughed, a harsh, mirthless sound.

“I thought you might ask me that,” he said. There was a shuffling sound on the other end of the hone, and then there came a small, frightened voice, tinny through the cell phone speakers.

“Mummy? Mummy, I’m scared.”

_Emilia._

“I’m here, love, Mummy’s here,” Ruth said in a rush, fighting back a sob. “I’ll find you, love, I will-“

“You have ninety minutes, Harry,” Bateman’s voice cut in. “I’ll call back with instructions.”

The line went dead.

Ruth took a deep, shuddering breath and opened her eyes.

Harry was still beside her, staring at the phone in his hand as if it were a snake poised to strike. Tariq was pecking away at his keyboard, swearing; no doubt his attempts to trace the call had failed. Beth and Dimitri were just standing there, staring at them. Regretfully, Ruth eased her hand out of Harry’s grasp. The time for comforting one another had passed. The time for action had come.

“What is Albany, Harry?” Beth asked quietly.

He just shook his head. “The less you know about it, the better,” he told her. “You three need to start putting together a plan. Focus on Maya, see if you can get to her without Bateman finding out. He’s brought her back into his life, stashed her somewhere safe; chances are his plans for escape will include her, and we need to use that to our advantage. Whatever happens next, don’t let him get away. I don’t know if I’ll be able to communicate with you once this gets started. I’m trusting you with this.”

And with those words he turned and began to walk purposefully towards the pods.

Ruth didn’t think, couldn’t think; she simply reacted, tearing after him.

“And just where the hell do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

“Ruth-“

If she’d been only marginally less furious she would have blanched at the love and sorrow she saw in his eyes, but at that moment, nothing could stop her.

“You’re not going alone!” she insisted, crossing her arms in front of her. He reached for her, but she pulled back, refusing to give in, refusing to let him pretend like he was the reasonable one in this situation.

“Ruth-“ he tried again, and she could tell he was starting to get angry with her, but she honestly didn’t care.

“She’s my bloody daughter-“      

“I will not lose you both!” Harry bellowed, and every eye on the Grid turned to focus on the pair of them. Ruth couldn’t have cared less.

“What are you going to do, Harry? Order me to stay behind? Discipline me for insubordination?” She scoffed. “I’m dead, remember?"

“Ruth-“

She was determined not to let him speak.

“You’re wasting time,” she said flatly. “Let’s go.”


	7. Chapter Six

Harry was absolutely bloody fuming. No matter what he said, Ruth refused to go back to Thames House. She’d always been stubborn, his mule, but she rarely bucked his authority so blatantly, once he’d made up his mind. She’d argue, she’d cajole, and in the end, if he gave her an order, she’d follow it. She’d never had the confidence to deny him before. Or perhaps, if he were being honest with himself, it wasn’t so much a lack of confidence that kept her in line as it was a fear of being sent back to GCHQ. Now that he could no longer threaten her with that, she was bound and determined to get her way.

He’d tried to tell her that it wasn’t safe, that he couldn’t bear it if anything should happen to her, but she refused to listen. Nothing, not even Harry himself, would stand in the way of Ruth being reunited with her child.

Their child.

He still couldn’t quite believe that, couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that the bright, cheerful little girl in the photograph was his. His _and Ruth’s._ Guilt consumed him; it was his fault Ruth had to leave, his fault that he had missed so much of their child’s life, his fault that Ruth had been forced to carry this burden by herself for the last five years. His fault that she had no proper home, that she lived every moment in fear. His fault that the girl had been taken, his fault that her life was in danger. _His fault._ All his.

It weighed heavy on him, the guilt, but he prayed his judgment was clear. Desperately hoped he was making the right choice.

*** 

They didn’t speak much, on the way to the church. Harry was too angry, too worried, and he feared that if he tried to give voice to his thoughts he would only do more damage. Ruth was twisting her hands together in her lap, her eyes distant and unseeing. He wondered for the thousandth time what was going on in that complicated mind of hers.

He parked the car in front of the church, and watched Ruth give herself a little shake, the fog over her eyes lifting as she forced herself back into the present.

“Harry,” she said, looking around uncertainly, “Where are we?”

Harry killed the ignition, tucked the keys in his pocket, and reached for the door handle.

“Bateman wants Albany,” he answered. “So we’re going to give it to him.”

She reached out and stopped him with a warm hand on his arm, and he was startled by how familiar the gesture felt. A flood of memories overcame him; the softness of her skin beneath his hands, the sound of her ragged breathing, the salty taste of her tears as he kissed her cheek. He struggled to drag himself back in to the present, and found her staring at him, her soft grey eyes full of fear.

“What is Albany, Harry?” she asked him in a small, tired voice.

He’d been wondering when she’d get around to that. Wondering if she’d ask at all. She must have been curious, he knew, but he imagined she was frightened of the answer, as well. What if it was something horrible, catastrophic, something more valuable to him than his own daughter’s life? He knew the courage it had taken her to ask the question, and he promised himself he wouldn’t lie to her.

“Albany is a fiction. It’s a weapon that has never, will never work. We let the Russians believe it was successful, because we wanted to keep them in line, but it’s a joke, really. And it’s hidden in there.” He nodded towards the church.

Her eyes had never left his face, watching, analyzing, searching for signs of a lie, but she was satisfied with his answer.

“What the hell is it doing in a church?” she asked wryly, and Harry had to fight the sudden, wild urge to laugh.

***

Harry had just finished stashing the case in the back of the car when the second call came in. Ruth came rushing to his side when she heard the shrill ringing, and this time Harry didn’t resist the urge to hold her. He curled one arm around her shoulders protectively, drawing her close to him, and held the phone in front of him as he answered.

“Harry?” Bateman’s voice came through the speakers, familiar and vile.

“I’ve got it,” Harry said shortly. “Tell me where to go and we’ll meet you there.”

“ _We_? Oh no, Harry, I didn’t agree to a ‘we’. Just you and me.”

“Tell that to Ruth,” Harry spat, and when he head the short bark of Bateman’s laugh, he had to utilize every bit of will power left to him to keep from smashing the phone to bits on the curb.

“Fine,” Bateman said, “Bring her along. She’s tougher than she looks, your Ruth.”

“Where are we going?” Harry asked through gritted teeth. Ruth was frozen still as a statue beneath his arm, but she was here, she was _here_ , and he wasn’t going to let her down. Not this time.

“Hang on a minute,” Bateman said, his tone deeply suspicious. “Are you serious? You’re really going to give it to me, just like that?”

“A straight swap. Albany for Emilia. That was the deal, Bateman,” Harry growled.

There was a long moment of silence before Bateman spoke again.

“All right. Let’s see how this plays out, shall we?”

***

Bateman’s plan was at once simple and infinitely well thought-out, and somewhere in the back of her mind Ruth couldn’t help but feel a sort of grudging admiration for it. He directed them to a warehouse and, once they were inside, had Harry strip his phone, smashing the SIM card on the ground. There was a little camera in the center of the room, and a fresh, untraceable mobile on a nearby table. Satisfied that Harry’s mobile was sufficiently disabled, Bateman called the new phone, and continued with his instructions.

“All right now, both of you, strip.”

Ruth knew there was nothing particularly unseemly in his request; Bateman knew every bit of tech in MI-5’s expansive repertoire, and he wasn’t taking any chances. Of course, he hadn’t counted on Ruth’s presence, so while there was a spare, supposedly clean, change of clothes for Harry, Bateman would just have to make due with forcing Ruth to turn out her pockets and hold each article of her clothing up to the camera for his examination.

It was a very uncomfortable few minutes for both she and Harry. Neither of them was willing to look away even for a moment in this unfamiliar space, lest Bateman spring some sort of trap on them while they were off their guard, but both of them bore such a deep, innate sense of propriety that even under the circumstances stripping down to just their underwear together left them blushing and muttering like schoolchildren.

Ruth was nervous for another reason, too; unbeknownst to Harry, tucked away inside the tunnel of her right ear was a small, nearly invisible earpiece.

Tariq had shown it to her a few hours before, explaining how he had tinkered with the existing model, creating a new piece that would both send and receive sound. Back at Thames House, Tariq would be able to hear every word Ruth said, and some ambient sounds from her environment, as well, if they were loud enough or close enough to her ear. And she would be able to hear him, too, loud and clear. She’d borrowed it from him because she knew it was likely that at some point she and Harry would end up incommunicado, and the potential for disaster in that scenario had terrified her. Ruth supposed she’d rather have it than not, and now she was grateful for that bit of foresight.

She stood in front of the camera, turning her shirt inside out for Bateman’s inspection, wondering if he would be smart enough, quick enough to demand that she prove she wasn’t wearing an earpiece. Slight of hand was not her forte; she’d always been a bit clumsy, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to ferret the earpiece away before he’d noticed it. There was nowhere else she could have put it; he’d demanded she remove her tights and turn them inside out, that she shake her boots vigorously, and even, at the very end, that she remove her bra and knickers, just to prove there was nothing tucked away inside.

It was at this point that Harry went a little…well…bonkers.

“You listen to me, you son of a bitch,” he growled, pushing Ruth’s half-naked form protectively behind him, “If you think, for one second-“

“Harry,” Ruth stopped him with a quiet word, and felt her heart sink a little at the way his shoulders slumped when she said his name. She knew, though, that now was not the time to antagonize their tormentor. He had Emilia, somewhere, and Ruth knew that the important thing was to keep him happy. Comply with his demands, give the team time to work, and pray for a miracle. Bateman held all the cards, and Ruth had never been very good a bluffing.

Gently, she tugged on Harry’s arm, and he moved away from the camera. His eyes were dark with rage, but he did not resist, and for that she was thankful.

She took the phone from his hand, and stared down the camera as she spoke, adding an extra little tremor to her voice in the hopes that somewhere deep inside Bateman still had a heart.

“I’ll do it,” she said quietly, almost pleading, “but could I at least turn my back to you? I’ll keep my hands where you can see them.”

Bateman was quiet for a long moment, but in the end he acquiesced. “Do it.”

And so she did.

Ruth handed the phone back to Harry, who was simply staring at her like she was the most precious thing in his world. Slowly she turned her back to the camera, and did as Bateman asked, keeping her eyes on Harry all the while. He stood in front of her, not three feet away, but to his credit his eyes never once left her face. She knew she was blushing as she carefully removed the last of her clothes, keeping her hands up and in Bateman’s line of sight. It had been five long years since she’d last stood naked in front of this man, and even now, even in the midst of all this horror, she couldn’t fight back the flood of memories that threatened to overwhelm her.

“All right, I’ve seen enough,” Bateman’s voice came through the phone, startling them both. “Get your clothes back on.”

He hadn’t thought to check for the earpiece.

As she hurriedly tugged her clothes back into place, Ruth wondered briefly just how clear the reception was from the camera in the warehouse to wherever Bateman was hiding. How much could he really see? Was he watching on a high-res laptop, or a grainy cell phone? How was it being transmitted? Was it something Tariq could trace? She knew the techie had planned to one day integrate GPS into the earpiece to create a sort of three-in-one super bug, but he hadn’t gotten that far yet. He’d gone quiet at her request, but she desperately hoped he was close to an answer. They were running out of time.

Bateman directed them out of the warehouse and into a car he’d planted, Sat Nav already programmed and another tiny camera watching their every move. Harry drove with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching Ruth’s, and she clung to him fiercely. Whatever happened next, they were nearing the end of this charade, and just having Harry near was a comfort to her.

***

They met Bateman by a long, crowded footbridge, and followed his instructions to the letter. Harry’s heart was hammering in his chest as he dropped the case into the bin, and then led Ruth away, listening to Bateman all the while. He felt utterly powerless, cut off from the Grid with no way of knowing how the team was doing, forced to do the bidding of a madman he’d once called a friend. He fought back the urge to turn, run, and fling Bateman over the rail and into the water below; as satisfying as it might have been, without knowing where Emilia was being kept it simply wasn’t worth the risk.

He and Ruth paused halfway across the bridge, watching and listening as Bateman opened the case and entered his codes. Harry had explained to Ruth back at the church that the case, which contained only a laptop, was a false lead; it would open when Bateman entered his codes and, at a cursory glance, it would appear to be genuine. If Bateman dug too far into the files contained on the laptop, however, the game would be up. He had to hope that Bateman would be so relieved at accessing the data, and so desperate to make his escape, that he wouldn’t take the time to do any serious digging. It was a risk, but the truth was that the real Albany file had been destroyed long ago, and they had no other option. Let Bateman take it, let him run back to his masters, whoever they were; that laptop was less than useless.

“Where is she?” Harry growled into the phone, his patience having completely disappeared. “You’ve got the file, now tell me where she is. That was the deal.”

“Harry Pearce,” Bateman said in a tone of incredulity, “giving up a state secret. Committing treason for just one life.”

“Not just any life,” Harry answered. “Where is she, Bateman?”

“No,” came the answer. Bateman’s disembodied voice was deeply suspicious, a malicious spirit, bent on crushing their hopes. “It can’t be this easy. You’ve found something, haven’t you? You’ve found Maya.”

Of course Bateman had wised to their game. Of course he had. Beside Harry, Ruth had gone white as a sheet.

“Bateman-“

“No, Harry. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go to Maya. Your team is not going to interfere. We’re going to walk right past them. When we’re safe, I’ll call to tell you where the girl is.”

“And what’s to stop me ordering my team to shoot you the minute you go near that hotel?”

Bateman laughed. “I’ve got a team of my own, Harry. If I don’t check in sometime in the next two hours, they’ll kill the girl and run. You really think that’s enough time to find her?”

Ruth had wrapped her fingers around his wrist, gently trying to direct his attention away from Bateman and onto her. There was something in her expression, a familiar sort of triumphant revelation, that told him she had a plan. He had to trust her.

“Fine. I’ll make sure they stand down.”

“Good. I’ll call back once Maya and I are safe.”

The line went dead.

*** 

The minute Bateman hung up Ruth curled herself into Harry’s embrace, burying her face against his chest. The gesture was intended primarily for Bateman’s benefit; he could still see them, and to him it would appear that they had given up, that they were willing to wait him out. The truth was, Tariq had just come over the earpiece with fresh news, and Ruth needed to tell Harry without giving anything away.

“Harry,” she spoke quietly, “Harry, they’ve found her.”

Harry had wrapped his arms around her the moment she moved, and he leaned down to plant a kiss against her hair.

“How?” he asked, keeping his head low over hers so he could hear her answer.

“Something about cell towers and every computer on the Grid running a search for Bateman’s phone. I wasn’t really listening to that part. The important thing is that we know where Bateman was when he made the first call. When he put her on the phone. If we go, now, we may get there before he gets back to Maya’s hotel.”

It was a shot in the dark, really; it was possible Bateman had moved her after the call, but Ruth’s instinct told her that he hadn’t. This was it, their one chance to save their little girl, and she knew they had to take it.

“But how do you-“

“There’s no time,” Ruth cut him off, chancing a glance over her shoulder to see if Bateman was still hanging around. He wasn’t.

“Let’s go.”

 


	8. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some depictions of violence, but none of it is particularly graphic.

The building Tariq directed them to was an abandoned factory, one of many crumbling into decay on an old industrial compound several miles from the bridge where they’d met Bateman. Beth and Dimitri were scrambling CO-19 , but Ruth and Harry reached the building first. A decision had to be made. Should they go in first, unarmed and without backup? Or should they sit tight, and wait for the cavalry to rush in? Both carried risks; if they took the first course of action, there was every chance that one or both of them would die before they reached Emilia. If they took the second, there was every chance that by the time CO-19 got through the girl would already be dead.

Ruth, it seemed, had already made up her mind as she vaulted out of the car the moment Harry put it in park. He scrambled after her, and this time it was he who stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Wait, Ruth-“

She whirled on him, eyes flashing rage and terror in equal measure. “If we wait she could die,” Ruth practically spat at him, and he tried not to flinch at her accusing tone. She was desperate and scared, he knew. So was he.

“Sometimes the direct approach is best,” Harry conceded, and pulled her arm through his. “I have an idea.” 

Together they walked, arm-in-arm, from the car toward the factory. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to run, but he forced himself to walk. He didn’t know who was working with Bateman, but it seemed most likely that the men left guarding Emilia would be no more than that, just simple guards, cogs in a machine they didn’t fully understand. Certainly Bateman would have warned them not to let anyone into the building, but would he have taken the time to make his cohorts learn their faces? Even if he had, Harry hoped that their unexpected, almost casual arrival would throw the guards off enough to earn him the split second advantage he would need. He wished to God that Ruth wasn’t here, that he hadn’t been forced to put her in this kind of danger, but he knew better than to try to argue with her any more. She’d chosen this, just as much as he had.

There was only one man standing in front of the building, leaning up against the door almost as if he were bored. He held a large, semi-automatic rifle loosely in his hands. Harry had to wonder at the bravado of that; was Bateman really so sure they wouldn’t find this place that he allowed this man to stand thus armed in the broad light of day?

Harry made no move to slow down as they approached the man, who straightened up and pointed the gun directly at Harry’s chest.

“Stop,” he said.

Harry didn’t.

“Seriously, stop! What the hell do you think you’re doing, mate?” the guard asked in an baffled tone, and it was that question that proved his undoing.

While the guard was talking Harry had kept on walking, pushing Ruth behind him at the last minute and clocking the man right in the face with an almighty blow. The guard had been so distracted by Harry’s mere presence, so surprised that he hadn’t stopped moving, that he’d never even attempted to defend himself. He went down with a clatter as the rifle dropped from his grasp, trying and failing to take Harry with him. Harry was on him in an instant, punching him everywhere he could reach, directing all of his fury at the guard; to his credit, the man did attempt to struggle, but he was already on the ground and Harry was stronger than he looked. He hit him again, and again, raising up the man’s head only to bash back it against the curb.

“Harry! Harry stop!” Ruth’s voice cut through the red haze that had risen before Harry’s eyes the moment he’d struck the first blow. Dimly the scene before him materialized, the guard’s face bruised and bloody beneath his hands. The man was certainly unconscious, maybe even dead already. Harry didn’t take the time to check.

Harry grabbed the rifle and started for the door, but a sudden idea stopped him in his tracks. He went back to the guard, searching underneath his coat until he found what he was looking for.

He might not have been particularly well trained, but at least the man was prepared; the guard had been carrying a second weapon, a handgun tucked down the back of his pants. Harry checked the gun over. Four rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Five bullets.

He handed it to Ruth, who accepted it without a word, and thus armed they turned and headed for the door.

***

The gun felt oddly familiar in Ruth’s grasp. She’d done the requisite firearms training back when she’d first joined MI-5, and she prayed that she remembered enough of it to see them through this nightmare.

Once they’d passed through the door they found themselves in a long, dimly lit corridor. The hall was lined with doors, most of them open, and just ahead it turned to the left, leading off out of sight. They walked side-by-side, guns drawn and senses on high alert. She’d never been this tense, this on edge, in her entire life; not when she’d been the only thing standing between Angela Wells and the utter destruction of Thames House; not when she’d first landed in Rome after Cotterdam, broke and alone and convinced every shadow she saw was Oliver Mace, come to take her away; not ever.

Their first test came perhaps thirty seconds after they’d passed through the door. Someone came wandering out of one of the empty rooms off to their right, unaware of the threat of violence that hung in the air; Harry was on that side, and gunned him down without missing a beat. The sound of the rifle blast echoed horribly in the hallway, but they did not stop, could not stop.

On they walked, heading for the turn just ahead; two men came barreling round the corner and they fell like the first; Harry took the one on the right, Ruth the one on the left. She’d never actually shot anyone before, but now was not the time to dwell on this dubious new achievement. Her mind was oddly clear, only one thought crystalizing through the mayhem: _get to Emilia._ She cocked the gun, heard the click as the next round slid into the chamber. Four bullets left.

There was no need to speak. She and Harry were, as they had always been, utterly in sync, marching at a steady pace, though whether it was their doom or their salvation that awaited them, neither was sure.

There were two more guards at the end of the hallway, standing in front of the only closed door they had encountered so far. These men were more prepared than the first four had been, and began firing right away. Instinctively Harry and Ruth flung themselves to the side, he taking shelter in one doorway and she in another. The hallway echoed with the sound of gunfire and the ricocheting of bullets, but Ruth knew it was patience that was needed here. Her moment would come, she told herself, clutching the cold metal of the gun in her hands. Somewhere through the din she thought she heard footsteps, thought she heard the guards approaching and, crouching low, she chanced a glance around the doorframe.

A bullet grazed her face, searing pain splitting her cheek, but they had missed her, they had _missed,_ and she took the opportunity to fire off two rounds, quick and low. The man on her side of the hallway went down, screaming, as she ducked back into the relative safety of her doorway. Two bullets left.

Across the hall Harry was watching her; she knew the moment he registered the laceration on her face because his own expression went grim and without hesitation he stepped directly into the path of the second gunman, firing.

That one didn’t scream.

Ruth and Harry stepped back into the hallway, making their way around the two fallen guards. Ruth prudently kicked the weapon away from the man she’d shot; she was fairly certain he wasn’t dead, and she didn’t want him firing at her back.

Her gaze fell on the closed door. The only closed door they’d seen, with two guards standing outside it; surely that was where they were keeping Emilia.

Harry reached out for the handle, and Ruth came to stand beside him. Whatever was on the other side of that door they would face it, together.

*** 

Harry flung the door open, knowing that their firefight in the hallway had already given them away. There was no time to think, no time to asses; there would be a moment when whoever was in that room would think that maybe it was their fellows coming through, and it was that instant of uncertainty that would be his and Ruth’s only advantage. He raised his weapon, and fired.

***

Ruth would be forever grateful that the guards had sedated Emilia; the little girl lay curled fast asleep in the corner, and would thus be spared the sight of her parents, blood spattered and furious, guns drawn, moving deliberately through that doorway like two avenging angels. Next to her Harry’s gun roared, and she raised her arms to fire.

Two bullets left.

***

In the end, there were only three guards, and Harry managed to take down two of them in rapid succession while Ruth dispatched the third. The two Harry killed had been in the process of firing back, but their aim had been off, and he remained unscathed. The third guard had dived for Emilia when Ruth shot him in the back, and he landed in a blood-spattered heap two feet away from her sleeping daughter.

One bullet left, and not a guard in sight.

She was across the room in an instant, gathering her child in her arms, willing herself not to break, not now, not yet. They’d encountered nine guards, which seemed an awful lot for one little girl; then again, John Bateman knew exactly who he was up against. She took an instant to assure herself that Emilia was still breathing before she rose to her feet, cradling her daughter on her left hip in that gesture that seemed so instinctive in all mothers. She raised the gun in her right hand, and made her way back to Harry. He walked just a little in front of her on the left, shielding Emilia with the rifle. Slowly, deliberately, they made their way back down the hall, ignoring the blood and wreckage from the baptism of fire through which they’d waded to reach this point.

The minute they were out of the building they both broke into a run, sprinting toward the car. Ruth flung herself into the back seat, cradling Emilia in her arms, while Harry turned gunned the car the second the ignition turned and peeled away, tires squealing. It was only then, in the relative safety of the car, that Ruth allowed herself to break. She buried her face in her daughter’s hair, and sobbed.

 


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we are folks! Some smut ahead. Thanks for sticking with me to the end.

Harry stood by what had once been Lucas North’s desk, speaking quietly to Beth and Dmitri. He kept his eyes trained on his office, where the medics were tending to Ruth and Emilia. Ruth had a hideous cut on her face, and Emilia was crying uncontrollably, but the pair of them were otherwise uninjured, blessedly, mercifully alive.

“I had to tell Towers what happened,” Beth was saying, and with some difficulty Harry tried to keep his mind focused on her words. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, desperately needed a piss, and the last thing he wanted to do at this moment was deal with a bloody politician.

Harry grunted. “What exactly did you tell him?”

“That Lucas North is a traitor, that he kidnapped a little girl and you were going to get her back. I didn’t mention Albany by name, and I didn’t tell him that it was your daughter.”

Harry felt the tiniest amount of relief at her words. He was glad that Towers didn’t know about Emilia; one phone call would explain the Albany situation, and he was fairly confident that while he would certainly have to answer for the bloodbath in the factory, it seemed unlikely that anyone would label him a traitor. Not today, at any rate.

Dimitri had been on the phone with CO-19, but he ended the call and turned to them, his face grim. “Harry,” he said, “it looks like two of the guards at the factory are going to make it. Once they’re out of surgery, we’ll bring them in for interrogation. We’ll figure out who was behind this.”

Harry nodded. It was something, at least.

“And Bateman?” he asked.

It was Tariq who answered him. The young man reached around to the printer behind his desk, and pulled out a stack of photographs, handing them over to Harry.

“We let Bateman and Maya leave the hotel. Didn’t want to give Bateman the chance to call in a kill order. They made it as far as an airstrip just outside the city.”

Harry stared at the photographs in his hands. The case that contained the fake Albany file lay shattered on the ground, and beside it were the bloody remains of John Bateman and Maya Lahan. It looked like Bateman’s employers had been more thorough in their examination of the files. Harry felt a stab of pity for the woman; he didn’t think she had been aware of exactly what her paramour was doing. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up in events she had no way to understand.

Bateman, though. Bateman got what he deserved.

“I’ll take care of Towers. You three should go home and rest.”

Beth opened her mouth to protest, but Harry cut across her. “I mean it. I’ll handle the clean up. You’ve done more than enough for one day.”

He watched the three of them slowly gather up their things while the events of the last eighteen hours played on a loop in his mind. They had been there for him, supported him, helped him, without question. They had proven themselves, at last, and he found a sort of affection for all three of them worming its way into his exhausted heart.

“Thank you,” he said suddenly, and as one his team turned to gape at him. “Thank you all. It’s because of your efforts that my daughter is still alive.” He extended his hand to Dimitri, who stood nearest him, and tried not smile as the young man tentatively reached out and shook it, an almost comical expression of shock on his face. Dimitri turned and headed for the pods, and Harry shook Tariq’s hand next.

And then he was alone with Beth. Beth, whose brief tenure at Thames House had so far been tempestuous, to say the least. Beth who presented him with a challenge at every turn. Beth who had known Lucas better than anyone else.

“Thank you, Beth,” he said, and for a moment he was afraid the girl might burst into tears. He was absolute rubbish when it came to crying women, and he knew it.

Instead, she surprised him by suddenly wrapping her arms around him, hugging him briefly before kissing his cheek and disappearing through the pods. He watched her go, a bemused little smile tugging at his lips.

***

While Harry spoke to Towers Ruth helped Emilia take a bath and settled her into his spare bedroom. The sun was still out, but it had been a trying few days for the little girl, and some of the sedative remained in her system, leaving her exhausted and disoriented.

“It was an awfully bold move, Harry, going to meet Bateman,” Towers said on the phone.

“It seemed the only option available to us,” Harry explained, taking a sip of his tea. He’d gone straight for the whiskey, once they’d gotten in the house, but Ruth had leveled a reproachful look at him as she stood in the doorway, Emilia cradled in her arms, and he’d opted for starting the kettle, instead. “We needed time to find the girl, and we couldn’t risk spooking him.”

“That brings me to my next question,” Towers continued. “Who exactly is this little girl? Miss Bailey was less than forthcoming.”

Harry fought the urge to sigh. “Her mother is a former agent. Bateman knows that I hold every member of my team in high regard, and he knew that I would do whatever it took to bring her back safely to her mother.”

Towers made a humming noise that set Harry’s teeth on edge. “Anyone I know?” he asked.

“If you don’t mind, Home Secretary, that’s a conversation I’d prefer to have with you tomorrow. I have a request, as regards the girl’s mother, but it’s a delicate situation and my nerves are a bit frayed.”

“Yes, well, shooting nine mercenaries in an abandoned factory will do that to a man,” Towers answered. “Get some rest, Harry. You’re on paid leave for the next few days, pending a formal inquiry, but I have every confidence that you will come out the other side. “

“Thank you, Home Secretary,” Harry said. Towers hung up, politely, and Harry found himself alone in the kitchen with nothing but memories and the faint taste of blood in the back of his mouth.

Somehow, they’d made it through. Through the horror and the fear and the rain of bullets they survived and brought Emilia home, whole and relatively unscathed. Ruth had come back to him, and right this very moment she was upstairs in his house, with their daughter.

The thought brought a smile to his face. Carefully he emptied the rest of his tea into the sink, rinsed the mug, and headed off up the stairs.

*** 

Ruth lay on the bed in the spare room, curled protectively around her sleeping daughter. She had no tears left, and instead found herself overcome with a sort of bone-deep weariness that left her utterly unable to move. Her head rested on the pillow beside Emilia’s, close enough to smell the damp, clean scent of her hair, and she smiled. She’d killed at least one man today, she knew, injured others, and tomorrow she might take the time to consider how she felt about that. Right now, though, all she could think was how grateful she was to be here, in this house, with her little girl sleeping peacefully, utterly unaware of the horrors her parents had endured, had inflicted, to bring her to this point.

Her parents.

That’s what they were, weren’t they? The two people who had brought her into this world, the two people who loved her and would do anything, _anything_ to keep her safe. Emilia had two parents, now, instead of one. Surely that would be better for her, in the long run.

Things would be different after this, Ruth knew. There was no way Harry would let them disappear again, and Ruth found she didn’t want to. Surely five years in exile was long enough. Surely there was something she could do, someone she could appeal to, someway she could bring Ruth Evershed back from the dead and claim some semblance of a normal life.

A life with Harry, maybe.

She’d thought about it more than she cared to admit, over the years. They’d only spent one night together, after all, and she knew that he _said_ he loved her, but was that enough? Was a love five years gone enough to build a new life on? Was that love strong enough to see them through the future? Once more people found out Emilia, would that love put her in danger again?

From somewhere down the hall she heard Harry puttering around, running a bath by the sound of it, and she allowed herself a moment to wonder what that future might be like. What it would be like to live in this house, with him, to see him all the time. Would she go back to MI-5? _Could_ she go back, after everything that had happened? Could she stand to do that to Emilia, to risk that her daughter might meet the same fate as Wes Carter, both of her parents dead and gone in service to a country that never knew their names? Then again, could she stand not to? She wondered what it might be like, kissing Harry good bye in the morning, never knowing if he was going to come back to her, never being able to share in his confidence again. It was the job that bound them, that showed them how well they worked together, how much they could depend on one another, and without that glue, what would they be?

She heard the sound of gentle footsteps, and looked up in time to see Harry leaning against the doorframe, smiling softly at her. He still wore the rumpled blue shirt Bateman had given him, unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows. He looked careworn and exhausted, and she knew exactly how he felt.

“She’s asleep,” Ruth murmured, somewhat redundantly, and watched Harry’s face as he gazed at them, the warmth in his eyes, the set of his shoulders, for once relaxed, almost happy.

“I’ve run a bath for you,” he said after several moments of peaceful silence, and she couldn’t help but smile up at him. Just like Harry, taking the time to think of her when he was just as exhausted, just as shattered, just as overwhelmed as she was. Ruth wanted to say no, wanted to say she was never, ever leaving her daughter’s side again, but she knew she needed it. Needed to wash away everything that had happened over the last few days, needed something normal to remind her who she was.

Carefully, not wanting to disturb her sleeping child, Ruth rose to stand on unsteady legs. She was absolutely knackered, and her legs wobbled beneath her. Before she had taken a single step Harry was beside her again, a gentle arm wrapped around her waist, warm and supportive and so wonderfully alive that Ruth had to fight the urge to cry once more.

***

Harry led her towards the bathroom, feeling slightly bemused. She’d looked so wonderful, a little bloody and a lot exhausted but absolutely beautiful, laying there next to their daughter, that little smile playing across her face as she watched the girl sleep. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but he knew now was not the time. They’d gone through hell together, and there was nothing he could tell her that his actions had not already implied.

He’d intended to leave her to her bath alone, but she was shaking under his arm, and he wasn’t all together confident in her abilities to get through this by herself.

“Ruth, I-“

“Stay with me, Harry,” she murmured sleepily, turning in his arms to smile up at him. “I’ve already seen you undress once today,” she added, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on her lips. He wasn’t sure where they stood with one another, really, wasn’t sure how she’d respond, but he could feel her smile against her lips, could feel her raise her arms and wrap them around his chest, and that was good enough for him.

They parted with a sigh, and he cupped her face in his hands, turning her head gently so he could get a better look at the cut on her face. The medics had cleaned and stitched the wound, but the sight of the angry red line across her pale skin made the rage well back up inside his chest. He’d come so close, so damnably close to losing her today. His only regret about the way Bateman had died was that he hadn’t killed the man himself.

“Harry,” she said warningly, and one glance at those familiar blue eyes told him she knew exactly what he was thinking.

He forced himself to smile and planted a soft kiss across the cut on her cheek.

Satisfied, her hands moved to the buttons of his shirt, and he stood perfectly still, watching as she carefully unfastened them, her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her eyes downcast, focused on the task at hand. She looked so serious, and he had to fight the urge to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. He restrained himself, however, and let her take her time, until finally the last button was undone and she was pushing the shirt off his shoulders. The shirt was covered in blood and dirt, and he was thankful to be rid of it.

“My turn,” he murmured gently, and turned his attention to the buttons of her blouse, glad that he wouldn’t have to try to pull it over her head without hurting the cut on her cheek. She was so warm, so close, and when his fingers brushed against her skin he could feel her blood racing in her veins.

In this way, taking turns, piece by piece, they undressed each other, until they stood together, naked and shivering slightly by the bath. The time had changed them both, but Harry had to admit it had been kinder to Ruth than it had to him. Her hips were rounder, her breasts fuller, thanks to Emilia, and the little lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth only endeared her more to him. Her wrinkles were a testament to the fact that she had lived, still lived, was still here beside him after everything she’d gone through.

Harry clambered into the bath first. It was a big, roomy affair, more than suitable for two people to lie together comfortably. He held his arms out and Ruth eased into them, lying with her back against his chest, her head on his shoulder. The heat of the water seeped into their exhausted limbs, and with what little strength he had left Harry raised his arms to wrap around her, drawing her as close to him as possible. He clasped his hands together against her stomach, just beneath the swell of her breasts, and she sighed contentedly, covering his hands with her own.

For a time they simply laid there together, letting the water wash away their troubles and soothe their aching limbs, letting the warm feel of skin on skin soothe their aching hearts.

“I love you,” Harry said, not realizing he’d spoken aloud until it was too late, tensing as he waited for the admonishment he was sure would follow, wishing he could see her face.

Ruth hummed, a sleepy, happy sort of sound. “I love you, too, you know,” she answered.

Well, no, actually, he hadn’t known, hadn’t allowed himself to believe that it was possible that she might love him after everything that had happened. She’d said it so matter-of-factly though, with the same sort of conviction people used when they said “the grass is green” or “the sky is blue”; she said the words as if they were the most obvious thing in the world, and it was that tone of certainty that convinced him it was true. She was here, in his arms, and she loved him.

He leaned forward, and planted a soft kiss on the back of her neck. He was rewarded with a gentle sigh, and one of Ruth’s hands rising up out of the water to cradle the back of his head, holding him closer to her as he kissed her again.

It felt so familiar, so almost moment-for-moment the same as that night they’d spent in an anonymous hotel, sweaty and naked and lost in each other, that he couldn’t help but smile against her skin. She pressed back against him, the warm swell of her ass brushing against his semi-hard cock, her little gasp bringing him to full attention almost immediately.

Propriety demanded that he apologize, that he not take advantage of her when neither of them had slept in almost forty-eight hours and both of them were bruised and battered from their ordeal, but Ruth never gave him the chance. She turned in his arms, displacing a fair amount of water and fumbling a bit until she was straddling his hips, her fingers brushing through his hair as she brought her lips down on his in a searing kiss.

His hands moved of their own accord, one clutching her ass almost bruisingly tight, the other clasping the back of her neck, holding her to him as he plunged his tongue into her mouth, desperate to taste her, to feel her, to lose himself in her as he had so many years before.

She ground her hips down against him and whimpered when his hardness brushed against her; he could feel the heat of her, hotter than the water that surrounded them, now, but he wanted her to be in control of this, wanted her to decide when – if – she was ready to take that next step.

Ruth pulled away from him, flushed and panting, and he told himself to relax, that there would be other nights, better nights, another time when she was in a better place and they could come together. He had waited five years to have her in his arms again, he could wait a little while longer. 

“Harry,” she said, her voice soft and ragged. “I need you. Now.”

Would wonders never cease?

He found he couldn’t speak, could only stare at her in awe and desperate need. He nodded.

She kissed him again, supporting herself with one hand on the wide edge of the bathtub while the other went fishing around in the water between their bodies. He moaned into her mouth when he felt her small, warm hand wrap around him, and she broke away from him, laughing softly. “Shhhh,” she said, an impish grin on her face. He just nodded inanely; the feel of her hand on him had wiped every thought from his mind.

Slowly, tortuously slowly, she lowered herself onto him, her head thrown back and her bottom lip caught once more between her teeth to keep herself from making a sound. He fought the urge to grab her by the hips and pull her down hard against him; he wanted her to set the pace, and if she wanted slow and steady, then by God he was going to give it to her.

She moved with a sinuous sort of grace, surprising in someone who was ordinarily so clumsy, raising herself up and down again with a gentle rocking motion, taking him further and further each time until with a final thrust he was sheathed fully inside her warmth. A whimper escaped her as he slid home, and he leaned forward, dragging her down to kiss him again as he thrust up against her, just a little, just enough to make her shiver.

They moved together almost silently, steadily, slowly, pushing each other higher and higher with each thrust of their hips. The water sloshed dangerously around them, but they were both too lost in each other to care.

With a hand pressed flat against her back Harry held her close to him, kissing his way down her neck, across her collarbone, heading for the warm sanctuary of her breasts. She gasped as she felt his lips wrap around one warm, dusky pink nipple, and Harry smiled against her skin. He was tempted to mark her again, to commemorate the occasion, but he knew he’d have to answer for it in the morning, and thus resisted the urge. He loved the little sounds she made, loved the feel of her tight and warm and perfect around him, loved the way her skin tasted. He never wanted to leave this bath.

Ruth began to move faster, pushing herself down against him harder, and Harry, sensing the end was near, wedged a hand between them, brushing through the soaking curls at her center until he found what he was looking for. He kept his mouth on her breast as rubbed the tips of his fingers against her clit in a rhythm he remembered she liked, trying to meet her thrust for thrust until with a strangled groan she toppled over the edge, clenching him tight inside her until he had no choice but to follow suit.

She collapsed against him, her breathing labored, and he held her close, wanting to stay like this, with her, _in_ her, forever.

“I love you,” she panted against his shoulder. “I love you.”

***

By the time they were done the water had gone cold, so they gave each other only a cursory wash, both eager to touch one another as much possible, and eager to get the hell out of the cold bath and into a warm bed. Harry helped her out of the tub and wrapped her in a fluffy towel, trying to tamp down the surge of pride he felt when he saw how unsteady she was on her feet. _She’s exhausted,_ he reminded himself. _That’s not thanks to you._

While Ruth dried herself off Harry found a towel for himself, brushing off the last of the freezing water. He found he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was lovely, soaking wet and bedraggled though she may be.

*** 

Ruth tried not to blush under Harry’s frank stare. Naked together for the second time today, albeit under much better circumstances, and still his gaze was enough to heat her through to the core. She couldn’t believe they’d just done that, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it, either. She loved Harry, loved him like she’d never loved anyone in her entire life, and it felt right, to be with him again. If she were being honest, she never wanted to leave him.

Real life broke in as soon as she was dry, however; she had nothing to wear, and she staunchly refused to dress in the same clothes she’d been wearing before. She fully intended to burn them.

“Could I borrow a shirt, or something?” she asked timidly, and was rewarded with a soft smile. God, she loved it when he smiled at her like that.

“Of course,” he answered, taking her by the hand and leading her back to his bedroom.

He pulled a faded black t-shirt from one of his dresser drawers, watching with an amused expression on his face as she tugged it on. It drowned her completely, but he was looking at her like she was most the beautiful thing in the world, and if she hadn’t been so bloody tired that look alone would have been enough to have her falling back into bed with him.  

Harry started dressing for bed, and Ruth realized with a start that he probably expected her to sleep with him. And while the thought of spending a whole blissful, uninterrupted night with him was deeply appealing, she knew she couldn’t.

“I’m going to sleep with Emilia,” she said, and she didn’t miss the wounded look that flitted across his familiar brown eyes. “I just don’t want her to wake up alone and confused in a strange place,” she continued.

He nodded, and her shoulders sagged with relief. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said softly. “She’s been through a lot, I think it would be good for you to be with her. I’d join you myself, only I think waking up to my face would scare her.”

Ruth laughed a little, crossing the room to wrap her arms around him. He held her close as she pressed her nose against his neck, breathing in his smell and basking in the simple joy of being able to touch him again.

“I love you, Harry,” she whispered, and felt his arms tighten that little bit more around her.

He kissed the top of her head, the gesture so gentle and affectionate it made her want to weep.

“I love you, too. Go, take care of our girl.”

_Our girl._

She liked the sound of that.

Ruth kissed him one last time, and then forced herself to walk away, heading for the room where Emilia slept. She stood in the doorway for a time, watching her daughter sleep. The girl’s eyes were closed, her blonde curls spilled across the pillow in a tangle, and she looked so peaceful that for a moment Ruth couldn’t bring herself to move.

Tomorrow would be hard, she knew. She would have to see how much Emilia understood about what happened, how much of a mark the time spent in captivity would leave on her daughter, and that thought terrified her. She hoped in time the pain would fade, that maybe, years from now, Emilia wouldn’t even remember it. She was only four; surely this wouldn’t stay with her forever.

And there were happy things to come. She could tell Emilia that Harry was her Papa, could watch her daughter’s face light up as she realized that they were a family, the way they were always meant to be.

Ruth crossed the room on silent feet, sliding under the duvet and wrapping her arms around her daughter. Thoughts of MI-5, and her status as a dead woman, and how the hell Harry had come to be knight faded away as sleep stole over her. She was warm, her daughter was safe, and Harry was just across the hall.

She was home.

 

 


End file.
